Kamala Harris is a stepmom of 2: What to know about her family
As Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepts the Democratic nomination for president Thursday in Chicago, the spotlight is focused on not only on her, but also her family.
Harris, who entered the 2024 presidential race after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, is the stepmother of two children with her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
When she was sworn in as vice president in 2021, Harris, 59, made history as the first stepmother to be America's vice president.
Emhoff's children, Cole, 29, and Ella, 25, call Harris "Momala" and describe a loving co-parenting relationship that exists with their mother Kerstin Emhoff.
"They are really a unit, like a three-person parenting squad. It's really cool," Ella Emhoff told the New York Times in 2021 of her mom and dad and Harris. "It's really cool."
Harris, who herself grew up with divorced parents, has described her two stepchildren as, "my endless source of love and pure joy."
Both Cole Emhoff and Ella Emhoff supported Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where they gave speeches and were photographed alongside other members of Harris's family.
In his speech on the second night of the DNC, Doug Emhoff described his blended family, saying that Harris has "always been there for our children, and I know she'll always be there for yours too."
In an interview with "Good Morning America" co-anchor Michael Strahan, Doug Emhoff said he and his blended family always support one another.
"Yeah, we roll hard together, you know? That's who we are," Emhoff said in the interview that aired Sept. 20, on "GMA." And, you know, Kerstin has been incredible. When you attack Kamala, especially on issues about motherhood -- Kerstin has just been out there each and every time just to tell the truth about who Kamala is as a mother, as a person, as a member of our family, again, who's always there for us. And she's gonna be there for your family."
Here is what to know about Harris' family, from her husband and stepchildren to her sister and niece.
Doug Emhoff
Doug Emhoff, also 59, was working as a Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer when he and Harris were set up on a blind date in 2013 by a friend of Harris.
At the time, Harris was serving as California's attorney general.
The vice president wrote in her 2019 memoir, "The Truths We Hold," that the morning after their first date, Emhoff sent an email to set up future dates, writing, "I'm too old to play games or hide the ball ... I really like you, and I want to see if we can make this work."
In his DNC speech, Doug Emhoff said Harris saved his first bumbling voicemail to her -- left at 8:30 a.m. -- "and she makes me listen to it on every anniversary."
Harris and Doug Emhoff wed in 2014, her first marriage and his second. They marked their 10th wedding anniversary on Aug. 22, 2024, the same night Harris accepted her party's nomination for president.
"Let me start by thanking my most incredible husband, Doug. For being an incredible partner to me, an incredible father to Cole and Ella, and happy anniversary, Dougie," Harris said in her speech. "I love you so very much."
In their 2021 interview with the New York Times, the couple's children described them as still just as in love as they were on their wedding day.
"Doug and Kamala together are like almost vomit-inducingly cute and coupley. I'm like, When is this going to wear off?," said Cole Emhoff.
Added Ella Emhoff, "It's so insane. It's like the honeymoon phase forever. Like, the rest of the world gets to see it on social media, but we live that."
Last year, Doug Emhoff described his wife as a "great partner."
"Behind the scenes she's just a wonderful, caring, loving wife and great mom, auntie, friend," he told People. "She loves to laugh, which is a good thing. She loves to cook, she loves music. And so she's just someone who's a great partner in every sense of the word."
When Harris became vice president, Doug Emhoff paused his law career to assume the role of America's first-ever Second Gentleman.
In that role, he has toured the country supporting the administration's initiatives and the American people, recently sharing a photograph on Instagram of himself with the USA Women's basketball team ahead of the Paris Olympics.
"A man supporting a woman and lifting up a woman -- it's the right thing to do," he told Strahan of pausing his career to support Harris. "And when some women succeed it's not like some man somewhere is not succeeding. There's like this binary thinking where it's either/or. No, it's both. When we lift up women, we lift up all of society."
Over Father's Day this year, Doug Emhoff shared a photo of himself with Cole on a pickleball court, writing, "Nothing like a game of pickleball with Cole during Father's Day weekend."
Cole Emhoff
Cole Emhoff, who introduced his father at the DNC, followed in his father's footsteps by working in entertainment but chose the production side instead of law.
According to his LinkedIn profile, the 29-year-old has worked for Plan B Entertainment, a production company originally co-founded by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, since 2019.
Last November, Cole Emhoff wed his now-wife, Greenley Littlejohn, in a ceremony officiated by Harris.
"It meant so much for so many reasons," Harris told People of being asked to officiate the wedding. "It was so wonderful that the kids asked me to do it. For us, we think of marriage as being not just between these two people, but the coming together of families. So it was very much with that spirit that we all participated."
Harris also shared a marriage tip she gave to the newlyweds, saying, "I gave them a piece of advice, which is that at the end of every day, find some way to check in, no matter how tired you are or how many miles apart you may be, even if it's just at the end of the day, and say 'I love you.'"
Ella Emhoff
Ella Emhoff graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City and has since made a name for herself in fashion.
Shortly after the 2021 presidential inauguration, she signed with IMG Models and went onto walk in fashion shows for brands including Balenciaga and Proenza Schouler.
On her personal website, Ella Emhoff describes herself as a "multidisciplinary artist and creator."
In addition to launching a knitting club, she says on her website her work includes, "exploring textiles through knitting, designing knitwear, creating installations for brands and upcycling donated materials."
In her remarks at the DNC, Ella Emhoff described Harris as a "patient" and "caring" stepmother.
"Kamala came into my life when I was 14, famously a very easy time for a teenager," Ella Emhoff said with a laugh. "Like a lot of young people, I didn't always understand what I was feeling, but no matter what, Kamala was always there for me. She was patient, caring and always took me seriously. She never stopped listening to me and she's never going to stop listening to all of us."
In July, Ella Emhoff took to Instagram to highlight the important role Harris has played in her life after a clip resurfaced of Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance describing certain politicians, including Harris, as "childless cat ladies."
"I love my three parents," Ella Emhoff wrote in an Instagram story highlighting a statement from her biological mom defending Harris. "How can you be 'childless' when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?"
Maya Harris
Harris is known to be close to her younger sister and only sibling, Maya Harris, who shared memories of their childhood together in a speech at the DNC.
The sisters are the daughters of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, who both immigrated to the United States.
Their parents divorced when Kamala Harris was 7-years-old. After that, the sisters were primarily raised by their working, single mom, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a scientist who died in 2009.
Like her sister, Maya Harris became a lawyer, graduating from the University of California at Berkeley and then Stanford Law School.
Later in her career, she went into politics, serving as a senior policy advisor to Hillary Clinton on her 2016 presidential campaign and as a national surrogate for the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, according to her biography.
Maya Harris is married to Tony West, whom she first met while studying at Stanford Law.
Meena Harris
Meena Harris, the only child of Maya Harris, is the niece of Kamala Harris.
"I grew up in Oakland, California, in a house full of extraordinary women, my mom, my grandma and my auntie," Meena Harris said in an Aug. 22 speech at the DNC, later adding of her aunt's role in her life, "She guided me, now she's guiding my own children and I know she'll guide our country forward."
Meena Harris is now the mother of two daughters, Amara Ajagu and Leela Ajagu, who stepped onstage at the DNC alongside actress Kerry Washington to help explain how to correctly pronounce Kamala Harris's first name.
Like her mother and aunt, Meena Harris studied law and then became active in politics and social justice work.
The California-based entrepreneur is the founder of Phenomenal, which she describes on her website as a "a values-driven, 360-degree media company that centers women and historically excluded communities."
Meena Harris is also the author of several children's books, including "Ambitious Girl" and "Kamala and Maya's Big Idea."
In 2021, Meena Harris told "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin that she hopes her books inspire young girls.
"I recognize as a parent now and as an adult that I grew up in a really unique family where I was taught every single day that female ambition is a good thing. It was something to be celebrated. It means purpose and determination," Meena Harris said. "When I got to the working world, I realized that society tells us something much different and that we do not view female ambition so positively."
She added of her book, "I imagine girls reading it before bed and being lifted up with all the confidence in the world to wake up the next morning and just go, go, go ... and not be burdened by what we know inevitably will happen when they get in the real world where they're told, 'You're too ambitious. You're too this, you're too that.'"
