KAMALA HARRIS FOCUSES ON VISION AS REPUBLICANS STRUGGLE WITH MISSTEPS

As Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for US president, and 100,000 red, white and blue balloons floated down from the rafters, Charlene Dukes’ eyes filled with tears.

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“It was when she spoke about her family, her upbringing, which is so similar to many of us,” said Dukes, a Black woman from Maryland.

“Many of us were not born with a silver spoon in our mouths,” added Dukes, who said the prospect of the US electing a woman of colour as president for the first time in its 248-year history left her feeling “euphoric”.

Harris’s address got a thunderous reception in a packed sports arena in Chicago on Thursday night, crowning a pitch-perfect week for Democrats and whirlwind month that turned the presidential election on its head. Some had feared a repeat of the chaotic and violent 1968 convention in the same city; instead the feelgood factor was closer to the 2008 version in Denver that anointed Barack Obama.