Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the election to President-elect Donald Trump in a Nov. 6 speech to her supporters in Washington.
The remarks came less than 12 hours after Trump won the election after taking several key swing states. They marked the end of a truncated campaign that saw her catapulted to Democratic nominee in early August after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
In her speech, the vice president confirmed that she had earlier called Trump to concede the election.
She said she told Trump she would help him and his team with their transition and that her team would “engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it,” Harris said from a stage on the Howard University campus in Washington.
“At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party but to the Constitution of the United States and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”
That fight, she said, was one for “freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people,” ideals that she said reflect America at its best.
“That is a fight I will never give up,” she said, urging her supporters to do the same.
Howard, Harris’s alma mater, was meant to be the setting of her victory party—the place from which she would make history as the first female president-elect. Instead, it was the site from which she closed the book on her presidential bid.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump at 5:35 a.m. on Nov. 6 after projecting that he would win the crucial state of Wisconsin. But the writing had been on the wall for hours, and Trump had already delivered a victory speech roughly three hours before at his election watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“God spared my life for a reason,” the president-elect said, referring to the two recent attempts on his life.
“This was a movement like nobody has ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country.
“We’re going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country.”
Harris did not attend her watch party at Howard and skipped a scheduled address to her supporters. Instead, her campaign called it a night at about 11 p.m., encouraging supporters to go home and “get some sleep.”
The crowd that gathered to hear Harris speak was noticeably more sparse than that of the night before, although some notable attendees were spotted, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile.
