Kamala Harris leans into her Indian, Black heritage to energize voters

During this election year, Nalini Rau had been praying to the Hindu mother Goddess Devi for leaders who look out for everyone.

“For women, for minorities, for everyone,” said Rau, who moved from India in the 1980s and now teaches Indian classical dance in New York.

But even as she volunteered to register new voters, she wasn't feeling very optimistic about the presidential race until Kamala Harris, whose middle name is Devi, became a candidate.

Vice President Harris, the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, has leaned into that heritage to help energize voters.

Harris will need to assemble a broad coalition to win in November, including a substantial percentage of independent and unaffiliated white voters in the suburbs of battleground states, said Laura Tamman, an assistant professor of Political Science at New York's Pace University.

After all, Harris will be facing off against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. Trump received 55% of the white vote in 2020.

“She doesn’t have to win a majority of white voters, but she must come pretty close to President Joe Biden’s success in winning 43% of white voters in 2020,” Tamman said.

Harris is making strategic decisions to appeal to this broad group, including white voters, she said. "You see this in her choice of (Minnesota Gov.) Tim Walz as a running mate, but also in the issues she is focusing on and the places where she is traveling to hold campaign events," Tamman said.

With reproductive issues on the ballot in many states and abortion driving many women to the polls, Shekar Narasimhan, founder of the AAPI Victory Fund, thinks even more white women will vote this fall than in 2020.

He may be right.

More than 164,000 women met on Zoom to build support among white women for Harris’ campaign. There were so many participants that the platform crashed several times, according to published reports. The meeting, featuring singer P!nk and the actor Connie Britton, among others, raised $8.5 million.

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But people of color, and perhaps especially Asian Americans, will also be key, Narasimhan said.

Asian Americans have been the fastest-growing group of eligible voters in the United States over roughly the past two decades. Their number has grown by 15%, or about 2 million eligible voters in just the past four years. That’s faster than the 3% growth rate for all eligible voters during that timeframe, according to Pew Research.

Still, voter registration among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders has been 10% below the national average.

In battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the number of Asian Americans who cast their ballot in 2020 exceeded the presidential margin of victory, according to AAPI Data.

Turning them out this year could put Harris in the White House, Narasimhan said.

For Rau, Hindu symbolism is already on Harris' side.

Trump's running mate JD Vance has mocked Harris as a childless cat lady (though she actually has two stepchildren). In many of the stories about Hindu mythology, a Devi vanquishes an egotistical opponent. Often, she’s riding a lion or a tiger ‒ in other words, a big cat, Rau said, chuckling at the parallels.

“It’s tremendous justice that a powerful woman who's bright, who's intelligent, who's together, who's confident, who knows right from wrong and who is multicultural would be taking him on,” Rau said.

Can she be both Black and Indian?

Although Trump, speaking to a group of Black journalists, recently questioned how Harris could be both Black and Asian, more than 10% of the U.S. population now identifies as multiracial.

MR Rangaswami is a father of two biracial children. He’s an Indian immigrant married to a Greek American. He says he was puzzled by Trump’s comment, which implied that Harris was identifying as Black for votes.

Being biracial is “a major strength,” he said. “You have to navigate two cultures and dual identities. When my children are with their Greek relatives, they relate to that side of it and when they are with my Indian relatives, they feel Indian.  They are both. It’s fluid and nuanced.”

In fact, Harris has always embraced both sides of her heritage.

She grew up singing in a Black church choir and joined a Black sorority at her historically Black college, Howard University.

More than 44,000 Black women joined a call in support of Harris the night she announced her candidacy and helped raise more than $1.5 million.

A similar virtual call, South Asian Women for Harris, launched by actresses Mindy Kaling and Poorna Jagannathan, both of Indian descent, was attended by 9,000 women and raised $250,000.

While a California senator and briefly a presidential candidate four years ago, Kalinginvited Harris into her kitchen to make dosa, south Indian lentil and rice crepes. Harris talked about growing up eating yogurt rice, “lots of idli,” potato curry and dal ‒ the ultimate South Indian comfort food staples.

When Harris married Doug Emhoff in 2014, she placed a flower garland around his neck and had a mangalustra, a sacred thread worn by Hindu brides, around hers. Both were nods to her Indian heritage. The ceremony, at a courthouse in Santa Barbara, ended with the breaking of a glass, marking his Jewish roots. (Coincidently, Harris will be the featured keynote speaker and close out the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 22, on their 10th wedding anniversary).

The most effective communicators and leaders fully embrace their own life story and connect it to a larger story, in this case, the story of America, said Terry Szuplat, a former Obama speechwriter and the author of "Say It Well," a forthcoming book on public speaking.

History ‒ including Barack Obama's two elections ‒ shows that voters want leaders who are proud of who they are, where they come from, and the life experiences that have made them who they are, he said.

In this sense, Harris’ heritage is part of what makes her such a compelling leader to so many Americans.

“Her family’s story embodies America at our best ‒ a unique place in the world that truly welcomes all people into a diverse, inclusive democracy,” Szuplat said.

The more she shares her inspiring life story, the more people will see her journey as a reflection of their own.

“The kind of deep, emotional connection that leads people to volunteer and donate and knock on doors, which, in a close election, can make all the difference,” he said.

Daigre Thomas, who migrated from Jamaica 20 years, says she felt an instant connection to Harris.

“I know she loves music because she’s always dancing, always smiling,” Thomas said. “Jamaican people are happy people. No matter what we are going through, we probably laugh it off.”

Harris’ intersectionality also appeals to Hermian Charles who moved to the U.S. from Grenada at age 21 to attend Baruch College in New York City.

Seeing the daughter of a fellow Caribbean islander’s meteoric ascent has made her proud.

“I am so excited for the history making possibility of the first female president and that the first woman of color as president could be of Caribbean heritage,” she said.

As a Black mother of a 20-year-old daughter, she said representation was important to her.

“It’s going to make such a huge difference for people of color to have seen first Barack Obama and now have Kamala as president of the United States,” Charles said. “The ancestors are smiling.”

Does party still matter?

A growing number of Asian Americans now identify as independent ‒ 31% compared to 25% in 2020 ‒ according to the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey, conducted in partnership with AAPI Data.

That presents an opportunity for outreach to communities that have typically not been courted, said Narasimhan.

Thomas said she was "undecided" on whether she'd vote this election until Harris was nominated. But now, "I'm ready to vote," she said.

She believes Harris is well equipped to understand what wealth disparity means and how it can affect a country.

"In Jamaica, we have the poor side and the wealthy side," she said. "So I think she's exposed to all of that. We don't have to explain it to her because she understands."

Rau, for her part, believes the fact that two Hindu festivals, one dedicated to the goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga, called Navaratri, and other, Diwali, falling just before the election is another good sign.

“They both mark the victory of good over evil,” she said.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @SwapnaVenugopal