U.S. Senator Kamala Harris Goes Viral for Her Choice of Shoes

Kamala Harris is a Converse Fan — Here's a Closer Look at Her Sneaker  Collection

It took roughly eight seconds of on-the-ground campaigning for the first Black US woman to be nominated on a major party’s ticket to go viral.

At first glance, little seemed noteworthy as US senator Kamala Harris deplaned in Milwaukee on Monday. She was wearing a mask. She didn’t trip.

Instead, what sent video pinging around the internet was what was on her feet: her black, low-rise Chuck Taylor All-Stars, the classic shoe that has long been associated more closely with cultural cool than carefully managed high-profile candidacies.

By Tuesday morning, videos by two reporters witnessing her arrival had been viewed nearly 8 million times on Twitter – for comparison’s sake, more than four times the attention the campaign’s biggest planned video event, a conversation between Joe Biden and Barack Obama, had received on both Twitter and YouTube combined.

Harris’s sister, Maya, tweeted Monday that Chuck Taylors are, indeed, her sister’s “go-to”. A few hours later, Harris’s official campaign account tweeted the video with the caption “laced up and ready to win”.

At this point in a presidential campaign, every move is calculated, often to convey a sense of youth and energy and fitness to reassure voters of a candidate’s ability to handle the rigours of running the country, or helping to do so.

Biden often jogs up the stairs to his plane or up to the microphone onstage to demonstrate his vigour, and recently wondered aloud about what it meant that President Donald Trump struggled to descend a ramp at one of his events this summer. Trump criticised Biden for not leaving his Delaware basement, and supporters speculated about his mental acuity.

But as Harris’s sister – a former Hillary Clinton adviser and the co-chair of Harris’s former presidential campaign – tweeted, Chuck Taylors are a staple of the California senator’s wardrobe.

Kamala Harris And The Return Of The Presidential Fashion Police

She wore them regularly on the campaign trail in 2019, showing off a collection she said is several pairs deep.

Harris has white Chucks, off-white Chucks, black Chucks, and even hinted at a sequinned pair she has yet to break out on the trail.

Once, during an interview with The Washington Post on a bus rumbling through Iowa, Harris explained that she recommends washing the shoes to keep them fresh – but was adamant about taking the laces out first to avoid unseemly discolouration from the metal-framed lace holes.

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