Doug Emhoff is putting Melania Trump to shame.
For the past week, Vice President Kamala Harris’ adoring husband has been everywhere. Emhoff, who will celebrate his ten-year anniversary with Harris next month, has been hitting the campaign trail on a near-daily basis.
Since Harris launched her presidential bid virtually the instant Biden endorsed her eight days ago, Emhoff has appeared in-person for at least six events, posted 11 times on X and participated in a “Black Gay and Queer Men for Harris” call.
ADVERTISEMENT
Most recently, the entertainment lawyer got in a viral dig at former President Donald Trump.
“Mr. Trump, I know you have so much trouble pronouncing her name,” Emhoff, 59, said at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday. “Here’s the good news—after the election, you can just call her Madam President.”
Emhoff’s omnipresence invites the obvious question: Where’s Melania?
Amid the top-of-the-ticket switch-up, the former president’s wife has remained where she’s been all year: nowhere to be found. Melania Trump has barely appeared by her husband’s side as he campaigns to return to the White House, and she certainly hasn’t stumped for him. She turned down multiple requests to speak on the GOP’s biggest stage of the year, declining even to introduce her husband at the Republican National Convention earlier this month. She appeared, briefly and silently, only on the confab’s final night.
Her recent forays into public life have been rare and uneventful. She held two fundraisers for the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans. It took an assassination attempt against her husband for her to release a statement that included anything meaningful about their relationship.
Her forthcoming memoir titled Melania, scheduled for a fall release, could reveal more than she’s said in years. (If it even mentions Donald Trump. Her office has said the book will tell “a powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has carved her own path, overcome adversity, and defined personal excellence.”)
The second gentleman, by contrast, has never shied away from the spotlight. The man who could become the country's first first gentleman is already the ultimate wife guy. Even before she became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, he sat for glossy profiles and became one of the administration’s chief spokesmen against antisemitism. Now, he's really stepping it up.
Emhoff, whose personal X account was seldom active before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, has posted or reposted content on the site every day since then. The highlights include earnest campaign videos and supportive sharing of his wife’s content.
He introduced Harris in person for her first appearance at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, last Monday. He was choked up as he approached the podium while staffers chanted his name. During his brief remarks, he thanked her new campaign manager and reminisced about how Biden bucked him up when he stepped away from his career.
Emhoff used the following days on the trail to bend gender roles even further, boosting the campaign’s messaging around abortion access, demonstrating it isn’t just a women’s issue. He stumped at a reproductive health clinic in Virginia on Tuesday and at a Planned Parenthood in Maine on Wednesday, before his first rally appearance at a local rum distillery that evening.
His schedule this week is packed, too. First up is a swing through Martha’s Vineyard, where First Lady Jill Biden was originally scheduled to fundraise with David Letterman. Then, Emhoff will reportedly campaign in Nantucket, New Hampshire, and Maine. On Friday, he’s set to attend a fundraiser on Fire Island with Chasten Buttigieg; the two political spouses became friends on the 2020 campaign trail when their spouses were primary rivals.
The role of a spouse on the presidential campaign trail has long been to humanize the candidate—a task the former president’s wife has largely left to his children and grandchildren. Emhoff has already checked that box, hitting back on J.D. Vance’s “childless cat ladies” dig at Harris.
“Over the last decade, she’s not just been an amazing partner to me but a loving parent to two kids named Cole and Ella,” he said in Wisconsin, naming his two children from a previous marriage. “From Day One, she’s been present, nurturing and fiercely protective of them.”
Emhoff upped the relatability factor last week with a self-deprecating story about falling down on the job. After attending a SoulCycle class in West Hollywood last Sunday, Emhoff went out for coffee with friends. He’d left his phone in the car when one of his companions started to share the big announcement from the president.
“Of course I didn’t have my phone, so I ran and ran and got into our car, and of course my phone is just on fire, and it’s basically, ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ from everyone,” Emhoff said. “And of course, the first thing she said was, ‘Where the... were you? I need you.’”
Emhoff is making up for his rookie mistake.
