Joe Biden and Kamala Harris make victory speeches: 'A time to heal'

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris make victory speeches: 'A time to heal'

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made victory speeches to the nation Saturday night in Wilmington, Delaware, with primetime remarks stressing unity for a sharply-divided nation.

Harris, 56, the first woman and first woman of colour to be elected vice president, was first to take the stage, savouring the solo moment in a suffragette-white pantsuit, waving to the crowd and smiling broadly as she approached the lectern.

 Vice President-elect Kamala Harris arrives to speak Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.

She went on to thank the voters, organizers, poll workers and activists who she said delivered a clear message in what became a referendum election, choosing, she said, "hope and unity, decency, science, and yes, truth!"

"You chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States. And Joe is a healer, a united, a tested and steady hand. A person whose own experience of loss gives him a sense of purpose that will help us as a nation reclaim our own sense of purpose," Harris said, talking up her former opponent and now partner.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris addresses the nation from the Chase Centre, Nov. 07, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.

The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Harris also thanked her late mother and the generations of women before her -- "including the black women who are often, too often overlooked but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy."

"When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn't quite imagine this moment," Harris spoke of her mother, an Indian immigrant. "But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women, who throughout our nation's history, who paved the way to tonight, women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all."

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Supporters arrive to attend an event with President-elect Joe Biden, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.

She gave credit to Biden for helping her ascend to the second highest office in the nation and said she hopes her place on the stage will inspire others to follow.

"What a testament it is to Joe's character that he had the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country and select a woman as his vice president," Harris said.

"While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities," she added.

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Biden, after nearly 50 years in public and three tries for the White House, then took the stage and squarely focused on healing a divided nation -- but first took a moment to tout his history-making win.

"Folks, the people of this nation have spoken," Biden said to cheers and honking horns. "They've delivered us a clear victory, a convincing victory, a victory for we, the people. We've won with the most votes ever cast on a presidential ticket in the history of the nation -- 74 million."