US Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her husband of six-years Dough Emhoff, both 55, celebrate their wedding anniversary on Saturday. While celebrations may have to wait amid the din of the election campaign, one thing Harris is unlikely to miss, something she does every wedding anniversary, is to make Emhoff listen to the rambling voice mail message he left her on his first day of knowing her.
Emhoff, a lawyer, was meeting a client in his Los Angeles office when she asked if he would like to meet her friend Kamala, then the California attorney general. ‘She’s hot’, was the first thought that crossed Emhoff’s mind, he later told a Youtube channel. He texted her from a Lakers game, called her the next morning and followed it up with that rambling message, which he later said ‘horrified’ him.
The morning after their first date, Emhoff emailed her wishing for another. “I’m too old to play games or hide the ball,” the email read. “I really like you, and I want to see if we can make this work,” writes Washington Post.
She eventually met his two children — Cole and Ella — from his first marriage and bonded well, ending the day with ‘the four of them all singing along with the windows rolled down.’ As Harris writes in an essay for Elle magazine, “I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.”
It was in March 2014, Emhoff –White and Jewish — proposed to Harris–black and Indian-Jamaican. Kamala Harris burst into tears, “These were not graceful Hollywood tears streaming down a glistening cheek,” she wrote in her memoirs. “No, I’m talking about snorting and grunting, with mascara smudging my face.” she added.
The two married at Santa Barbara Courthouse on August 22, 2014. And the kids decided to call her ‘Momala’ , a Yiddish term of endearment meaning little mama.
Emhoff seems to have now comfortably moved into campaign mode and is ‘always around’ Harris. The New York Times reported Monday that Emhoff has taken a leave of absence from DLA Piper, the law firm he joined as a partner in 2017.
When Kamala Harris bowed out of the Presidential campaign in December 2019, her husband posted a black and white photo of them sitting on a chair and she leaning back on him with the caption “I’ve got you @kamalaharris … As always.” Then a heart emoji.
Harris and Emhoff, in their first presidential campaign, “are early on in their marriage, too. America is getting acquainted with them as a couple while they’re still learning about one another,” writes the Washington Post.
