Doug Emhoff: The first ‘second dude’ in the White House

The moment that Kamala Harris celebrated the news she would be the next vice-president — captured on camera for posterity — was history making three times over. Come January, she will become the first female, first black and first Indian American vice-president.

But the person behind the camera will be making history too. Ms Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, will become the country’s first second gentleman. He was already the first male spouse, at all, on a winning presidential ticket.

The 56-year-old has so far seemed to relish his role as a political partner. He became a star surrogate during Ms Harris’s own presidential bid, and often refers unironically to the #KHive — the name for Ms Harris’s most dedicated supporters. His social media feeds resemble unofficial fan pages for his wife.

In August, Mr Emhoff announced a leave of absence from his legal career to support the Biden-Harris ticket full-time.

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mage captionMr Emhoff became a beloved surrogate for the Biden-Harris ticket
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“He does seem to have really taken to it,” said Aaron Jacoby, a longtime friend and former legal partner of Mr Emhoff. “You could expect him to be a fish out of water — he’s not. He’s just swimming and enjoying it.”

Now, as the Biden-Harris team prepares for their move to the White House, how Mr Emhoff takes on his role may signal a step forward for gender equality, as well as the distance left to go.

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In 2013, Mr Emhoff, then a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, was set up on a blind date with then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

A nervous Mr Emhoff left Ms Harris a rambling and “really lame” voicemail trying to arrange their first meeting, he said.

They met for dinner and the very next day, Mr Emhoff emailed her with all his available dates for the next few months to come, Ms Harris wrote in her 2013 memoir, The Truths We Hold. “I’m too old to play games or hide the ball”, he said. “I really like you, and I want to see if we can make this work.”

Less than a year later, they were married at the Santa Barbara courthouse, in a ceremony that paid tribute to both her Indian heritage and his Jewish faith. Ms Harris saved that first voicemail and plays it every year on their anniversary.

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Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and husband, Douglas Emhoff, embrace on stage after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke in Pittsburgh at a simultaneous drive-in election eve rally on November 2, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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image captionMs Harris and Mr Emhoff were married in 2014 in Santa Barbara
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Through their marriage, Ms Harris became a stepmother, or “Momala”, to Cole and Ella, Mr Emhoff’s children from his first marriage to Kerstin Emhoff, the co-founder and chief executive of production company Prettybird.

Ms Harris has said it was meeting Cole and Ella that ultimately “reeled [her] in”. Likewise, for the Emhoff kids. In an interview with Glamour magazine this year, Cole, 26, said that meeting Ms Harris “for all of us… was love at first sight”.

Mr Emhoff and his first wife are famously friendly. “We remain incredibly close”, he said in an April interview with Chasten Buttigieg — husband of former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. And Ms Emhoff and Ms Harris get along “amazingly”, he said.

During Ms Harris’s own bid for president, Ms Emhoff — who frequently tweets her support for the Harris-Biden ticket — lent her creative services to the campaign.

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“They were like, ‘the ex-wife wants to do what?’” she told Marie Claire in October.

Now, on the trail, in interviews and across social media, Ms Harris and Mr Emhoff seem to be a genuinely happy couple.

“What you see is what they’re re