I have not been the biggest fan of Kamala Harris, but to my surprise, the candidate who underwhelmed in 2020 is gone. What I took away: Kamala Harris is a different candidate than we saw four years ago. That is hard for any candidate but it is an almost impossible tightrope for a Black female candidate to walk. Americans crave the performance of authenticity as a sign that our values are in safe hands — hands just like ours. Political candidates have to negotiate ideas about identity with an audience’s expectations of who should be in power.

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Persons: Kamala Harris, Harris, Walz, Donald Trump, Trump Organizations: Democratic, Zeta Phi Beta, National Federation of Teachers, Philadelphia, Trump