Vice President Kamala Harris is now center stage in the big shakeup in the 2024 race after President Biden dropped out on Sunday and endorsed her to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket.
The sudden shift in the presidential race also puts Harris’ blended family back in the spotlight, as they could soon become the first family if she receives the nomination and beats former President Donald Trump in November.
Harris would be the first woman to serve as president of the United States if elected, but she and her family are already breaking barriers as she is the first woman and first woman of color to serve as vice president.
Rather than being known as “Madam Vice President” to some of her closest family members, Harris is instead a wife and older sister. To her two stepchildren, the vice president is simply known as “Momala.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is known simply as “Momala” to her two stepchildren Cole and Ella, who are the children of her husband Doug Emhoff.
Harris is married to attorney Doug Emhoff, who for the past three and a half years has enthusiastically taken on the role of first gentleman, traveling to more than 30 states and 14 countries as a representative of the U.S. and Biden administration.
He is not only the first second gentleman, but also the first Jewish spouse of an American vice president or president. He has been a leading voice in the administration in the fight against anti-Semitism and has convened Jewish leaders and others in the White House and across the country.
Emhoff has also been a leading voice in addressing gender equality and justice.
A lawyer for more than 30 years, Emhoff has advocated for legal aid and taught at Georgetown University Law Center.
Emhoff and Harris married in August 2014. At the time, he was a lawyer in Los Angeles and she was serving as California’s attorney general.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, arrive at the White House on March 21, 2023
If Harris is elected president, Emhoff would be the first First Gentleman. He is already the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president.
Before joining Harris in Washington as second gentleman, Emhoff was a partner at the law firm DLA Piper.
She first took a temporary leave of absence from the firm before the 2020 election, when the campaign season was in full swing. She officially left the partnership when Biden and Harris won the election and the transition to the White House began.
Prior to joining DLA, Emhoff worked for corporate law firm Venable, where some of his clients approached him with questions.
The second knight once represented arms dealer Dolarian Capital in a case involving the sale of AK-47 rifles for use in Afghanistan, as well as pharmaceutical giant Merck in lawsuits related to its drug Fosamax, the New York Times reported.
Doug Emhoff holds the Bible as his wife Kamala Harris is sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on January 20, 2021
An image of the second gentleman hugging his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, posted on Instagram
Harris is now stepmother to Emhoff’s two adult children, Ella and Cole.
In 2019, she wrote an essay in which she described her stepchildren as her “endless source of love and pure joy” and explained how That’s where the name ‘Momala’ came from.
“A few years later, when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella and I all agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom.’ Instead, they came up with the name ‘Momala,'” she wrote in Elle magazine.
The vice president also praised Emhoff’s ex-wife, Kerstin, calling her someone who has become a “dear friend.”
Ella Emhoff, now 25, was an art student when Harris was chosen as Biden’s running mate. She has since burst onto the fashion and art scene when her stepmother became the first female vice president of the United States.
Ella Emhoff is the youngest of Vice President Harris’ two stepchildren. The 25-year-old has been making waves in the fashion world since her stepmother became vice president as a model and knitwear designer.
In January 2021, Emhoff signed with international modeling agency IMG Models. Since then, she has appeared in a number of major fashion campaigns, walked in some of the world’s biggest runway shows, and walked on numerous red carpets, including the Met Gala.
Brooklyn-based Ella Emhoff also sells her own knits and artwork, including portraits, jackets, hats, coats and even shorts that appear on her website and she posts frequently on her social media accounts.
Ella Emhoff attends the 2021 Met Gala in New York City. It is known as fashion’s biggest night.
Harris hugs her stepdaughter, model Ella Emhoff
Ella Emhoff came under fire for urging her many followers to donate to the UN agency accused of having ties to Hamas earlier this year.
Although Emhoff has primarily been involved in fashion, his pro-Palestinian leanings have recently sparked a stir with the war in Gaza.
As pro-Palestinian protests erupted across the country in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza following the Hamas attack, the second stepdaughter urged her more than 300,000 followers on social media to donate to the UN agency accused of aiding Hamas.
After posting a link to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Gaza’s largest employer, he faced backlash from some critics and Jewish organizations who pointed out his alleged links to the terror group.
There no longer appear to be any fundraising links on their Instagram page.
Cole Emhoff, 30, works in film productions in Los Angeles. He married Greenley Littlejohn last year. Vice President Harris officiated their wedding.
Less well-known to the public is Harris’ stepson, Cole Emhoff, who lives in Los Angeles and works in show business like his mother.
Born in 1994, Cole Emhoff, 30, is the eldest of the vice president’s stepsons.
He was a senior in high school when Harris and his father got together. After graduating, he went to Colorado College.
According to his IMDB page, he has worked on several films, including as an assistant on the award-winning 2020 film ‘Minari,’ as well as the 2022 remake of ‘Father of the Bride.’
The vice president officiated at her wedding in October 2023 when she married Greenley Littlejohn.
Cole Emhoff was asked about his father and stepmother as a couple in a New York Times interview just before she was sworn in as vice president.
“It depends on the context,” she said. “Because Doug and Kamala together are so cute and make you gag. I wonder when this will end.”
He said that at home they always called Emhoff “Doug” instead of “Dad” and explained that they called him “Doug” as a term of endearment.
Doug, Cole and Ella Emhoff have yet to comment on President Biden’s endorsement of Harris to succeed him after she dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
However, Doug Emhoff took to X to praise the outgoing president and the Biden family, with whom he has worked closely for the past three and a half years.
He wrote that he is “d”“Deeply grateful” to the President and First Lady Jill Biden “for their years of friendship and support.”
“President Biden is a true patriot who leads our nation with honesty, decency and integrity,” he said.
