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What you should know about Kamala Harris’ family: her husband, her stepchildren, her sister and her niece

What you should know about Kamala Harris’ family: her husband, her stepchildren, her sister and her niece

As Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to officially accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago this week, the spotlight is not only on her but also on her family.

Harris, who entered the 2024 presidential race after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign, is a stepmother to two children she shares 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 become America’s vice president.

Emhoff’s children Cole (29) and Ella (25) call Harris “Momala” and describe the loving relationship she maintains as co-parent with her mother Kerstin Emhoff. She attended the presidential inauguration with her children in 2021.

“They’re really a unit, like a parent group of three. It’s really cool,” Ella Emhoff told the New York Times in 2021 about her mother, father and Harris. “It’s really cool.”

Harris, who herself grew up with divorced parents, described her two stepchildren as “my inexhaustible source of love and pure joy.”

Here’s everything you need to know about Harris’ family, from her husband and stepchildren to her sister and niece.

Doug Emhoff

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attend a campaign rally in Rochester, Pennsylvania, Sunday, August 18, 2024.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attend a campaign rally in Rochester, Pennsylvania, Sunday, August 18, 2024.

AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson

Doug Emhoff, also 59, was working as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles when a friend of Harris set him and Harris up on a blind date in 2013.

At the time, Harris was Attorney General of California.

The vice president wrote in her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” that Emhoff sent an email the morning after their first date 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 work this out.”

Harris and Doug Emhoff married in 2014, her first marriage and his second.

In their 2021 interview with the New York Times, the couple’s children described how they were still as in love as they were on their wedding day.

“Doug and Kamala are so cute and couple-like together that it makes you want to vomit. I’m thinking, ‘When is this going to die down?'” said Cole Emhoff.

SEE ALSO: Tim Walz’s kids give him bunny ears at the DNC: What you should know about the vice presidential candidate’s family

His sister Ella added: “It’s so crazy. It’s like the eternal honeymoon phase. The rest of the world can see it on social media, but we’re living it.”

Last year, Doug Emhoff described his wife as a “great partner.”

“Behind the scenes, she’s just a wonderful, caring, loving wife and great mother, aunt and 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 somebody who is a great partner in every sense of the word.”

When Harris became Vice President, Doug Emhoff interrupted his career as a lawyer to assume the office of America’s first Second Gentleman.

In this role, he traveled the country to support the government’s initiatives and the American people. Most recently, he shared a photo on Instagram of himself with the US women’s basketball team ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris.

On Father’s Day this year, Doug Emhoff shared a photo of himself with Cole on a pickleball court and wrote, “Nothing better than a game of pickleball with Cole on Father’s Day weekend.”

Cole Emhoff

From left: Cole Emhoff and Ella Emhoff, the stepchildren of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, arrive for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.

From left: Cole Emhoff and Ella Emhoff, the stepchildren of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, arrive for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.

(Win McNamee/Pool photo via AP)

Cole Emhoff followed in his father’s footsteps and worked in the entertainment industry, but chose production over law.

According to his LinkedIn profile, the 29-year-old has been working for Plan B Entertainment, a production company originally co-founded by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, since 2019.

Last November, Cole Emhoff married his current wife, Greenley Littlejohn, in a ceremony officiated by Harris.

“It meant so much for so many reasons,” Harris told People when she was asked to perform the ceremony. “It was so wonderful that the children asked me to do it. For us, marriage is not just something between these two people, it’s a coming together of families. It was in that spirit that we all participated.”

Harris also shared some marriage advice with the newlyweds: “I gave them one piece of advice: At the end of every day, no matter how tired you are or how many miles apart you are, find a way to check in with each other, even if it’s just at the end of the day, and say ‘I love you.'”

Ella Emhoff

Ella Emhoff attends the premiere of FX's "Feud: Capote vs. the Swans" at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, in New York.

Ella Emhoff attends the premiere of FX’s “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans” at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, in New York.

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Ella Emhoff graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York City and has since made a name for herself in the fashion industry.

Shortly after the president’s inauguration in 2021, she signed with IMG Models and walked in fashion shows for brands such as Balenciaga and Proenza Schouler.

On her personal website, Ella Emhoff describes herself as a “multidisciplinary artist and creator”.

On her website, she explains that in addition to starting a knitting club, she also “explores textiles through knitting, designs knitwear, creates installations for brands, and upcycles donated materials.”

In July, Ella Emhoff took to Instagram to highlight the important role Harris has played in her life after a clip of Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance resurfaced in which he referred to 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 mother defending Harris. “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have sweet kids like Cole and me?”

Maya Harris

Kamala Harris (right) is sworn in as Attorney General on Monday, January 3, 2011, along with her sister Maya Harris (center) and California Chief Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye (left).

Kamala Harris (right) is sworn in as Attorney General on Monday, January 3, 2011, along with her sister Maya Harris (center) and California Chief Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye (left).

AP Photo/Anne Chadwick Williams

Harris is known to be very close to her younger sister and only sister, Maya Harris.

The sisters are the daughters of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both of whom immigrated to the United States.

Their parents divorced when Kamala Harris was seven years old, after which the sisters were raised primarily by their working, single mother, scientist Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who died in 2009.

Like her sister, Maya Harris became a lawyer and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and then from Stanford Law School.

Later in her career, she entered politics and, according to her biography, served as a senior political adviser to Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign and at the national level as a surrogate for the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020.

Maya Harris is married to Tony West, whom she met while studying law at Stanford.

Meena Harris

Meena Harris arrives at the premiere of "A league of its own" on Thursday, August 4, 2022, at Easton Stadium in Los Angeles.

Meena Harris arrives at the premiere of “A League of Their Own” at Easton Stadium in Los Angeles on Thursday, August 4, 2022.

(Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Meena Harris, the only child of Maya Harris, is the niece of Kamala Harris.

Like her mother and aunt, Meena Harris studied law and subsequently became involved in politics and social work.

The California-based mother of two is the founder of Phenomenal, which she describes on her website as “a values-driven, 360-degree media company that puts women and historically marginalized communities at the center.”

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.

“As a mother and as an adult, I now realise that I grew up in a really unique family where I was taught every day that female ambition was a good thing. It was something to be celebrated. It meant purpose and determination,” said Meena Harris. “When I entered the working world, I realised that society tells us something very different and that we don’t view female ambition as positively.”

She added of her book: “I imagine girls reading it before bed and waking up the next morning full of confidence and just getting on with it… and not being burdened by what will inevitably happen when they get out into the real world and they’re told, ‘You’re too ambitious. You’re too this, you’re too that.'”

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