COMFORT FOOD

Kamala Harris: Only Doritos Got Me Through Election Night 2016

The presidential contender revealed how she ate her feelings when Hillary Clinton was beaten by Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris has revealed her coping mechanism for defeat by Donald Trump: a family-sized bag of Doritos.

The Democratic presidential candidate used a fundraising email to describe how she reacted to political defeat in 2016—not her own, but Hillary Clinton’s. The subject line for recipients was “A giant bag of Doritos.”

“Do you remember the day after Donald Trump was elected?” Harris, or at least her campaign team, said in the email. “I do. It was election night for me as well. It was incredibly bittersweet. When I took the stage for my acceptance speech—to represent California in the Senate—I tore up my notes. I just said, ‘We will fight.’

“Then I went home and I sat on the couch with a family-sized bag of nacho Doritos. I did not share one chip with anybody. Not even Doug. I just watched the TV with utter shock and dismay,” Harris continued. “Two things are true eight years later: I still love Doritos and we still have not stopped fighting.”

Harris’ choice of Doritos flavor was undisclosed, although her running mate Tim Walz has made clear his preference for “white guy” spicing.

Fundraising emails often make emotional pleas to persuade donors to open their wallets, but this literal appeal to the gut is unusual. Harris has made much of her love of food and cooking in previous campaigns, ranging from cooking Indian masala dosas with Mindy Kaling to offering Thanksgiving turkey advice (brine heavily and rub the insides) to an interviewer before the questions begin.

Her campaign ads have also highlighted how she worked at McDonald’s as a student, although her campaign rewrote a claim that she had “paid her way through college” by working at the chain.

Close watchers of the campaign may note that Harris wrote about heading for the “couch,” a piece of furniture that has become associated with trolling of JD Vance who was accused, without evidence, of “having sex” with one. Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, made a joke about debating Vance “if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” then said, “See what I did there?”

Harris’ fundraising has been hugely successful with more conventional emails as well as organized groups such as “White Dudes for Harris,” which held a mass Zoom fronted by Jeff Bridges. The campaign has boasted of raising $310 million in July after Harris entered the race, outstripping Trump’s haul.

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Hugh DoughertyExecutive Editor

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