by Doug Emhoff would have made history as the nation’s first ever gentleman.
But as Kamala Harris’s team addresses their wounds and scrutinizes her strategy after her apparent fallout from Donald Trump, one question the team may be asking is whether any past time her husband with the loss.
Mr Emhoff, 60, has tried to paint himself as a devoted “husband” with romantic pictures of Mr Harris flooding social media.
However, the father of two could not avoid airing his dirty laundry in the tabloids following his wife’s nomination as a presidential candidate.
He admitted that his first marriage to Kerstin Emhoff ended after he had an affair with one of her daughter’s teachers, and critics of Ms. Harris repeatedly used his cheating as a line of attack during the presidential race.
In a statement at the time, Mr Emhoff said: “During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times because of my actions. I took responsibility, and in the years since, we’ve worked through things as a family and we’ve come out stronger on the other side.”
Ms Harris is understood to have known about the relationship before they married in 2014, as did those responsible for vetting Ms Harris before she was appointed as Mr Biden’s running mate.
Donald Trump seized on the story, using it as a line of attack against Ms Harris at rallies and joking that she has to keep her husband “away from the nannies” during the Al Smith dinner, a lavish event in New York raises millions of dollars. for Catholic charities and has traditionally allowed candidates from both parties to trade light crops.
Mr. Emhoff has also been criticized by Trump allies, with conservative commentator Megyn Kelly saying Ms. Harris is “scared” of her husband during one of her final rallies.
Referring to a controversial ad by Democrats suggesting that women should keep their votes for Mr Harris private from their husbands, Ms Kelly told a crowd in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: “You see that ad they did about Trump voters trying to encourage women to lie to their husbands. so they could vote for her instead of Trump.
“That’s their version of what marriage looks like: an overweight husband who bullies his wife into saying she voted one way, rather than an honest, open relationship,” she said.
“Oh wait, I’m talking about Kamala and Doug.”
Stories of ‘every distraction’
Mr. Emhoff also addressed other allegations about his personal life, though he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that such stories were “all a distraction .. designed to try to get us out of the game.”
He was forced to deny media reports that he hit an ex-girlfriend after a woman claiming to be his ex-girlfriend claimed he hit her during a trip to the Cannes film festival in 2012.
The woman, described as a successful lawyer in New York, claimed the two had a date after meeting on Match.com.
She criticized Mr Emhoff’s portrayal of himself as the perfect husband, claiming he was a “completely made up persona”.
“It is considered to be the antithesis itself. And that’s surprising,” she told the Daily Mail.
Mr Emhoff has denied the allegations, and his spokesman told news website Semafor that the allegations are “false” and that “any suggestion that he ever hit or hit a woman is false”.
There were also reports from Mr Emhoff’s former colleagues that he was “rude” and “inappropriate” with women when he worked at the Venable law firm.
His representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the allegations, the New York Post reported.
An integral part of his wife’s campaign, Mr Emhoff, 60, has spent the past three months doing everything from darting around the country to hosting rallies and fundraisers to sending out campaign emails with the subject line “my badass wife”. .
He also tried hard to deflect some of Ms. Harris’s critics, becoming the administration’s voice in tackling the rise in anti-Semitism.
Mr. Emhoff condemned the Oct. 7 “terrorist attack” on Israel from the White House and repeatedly addressed the issue on the campaign trail, in an effort to appeal to Jews who might worry that Ms. Harris would down on the administration’s support for. Israel.
“She feels what you and I and Jews across America are feeling today,” he said during a campaign speech in Pittsburgh to mark the sixth anniversary of the shooting at the city’s Tree of Life synagogue, the anti-Semitic attack deadliest in American history, to commemorate. He said: “She gets it.”
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mr. Emhoff grew up in New Jersey before relocating to the West Coast.
Mr Emhoff met Ms Harris on a blind date in 2013, a meeting the former entertainment lawyer described as “love at first sight”.
“I’m too old to play games or hide the ball,” Mr. Emhoff said at the time, according to Ms. Harris’ 2013 memoir.
“I love you, and I want to see if we can make this work,” he told her.
Ms Harris credits media power couple Dana and Matt Walden with being responsible for setting her up with Mr Emhoff – but even the story of their meeting was not without controversy when Ms Harris hit the campaign trail.
Trump questioned how close the two couples are because Mr. Walden is the boss of Disney, the parent company of ABC News, which hosted the debate between Ms. Harris and Trump in September.
Ms Harris and Mr Emhoff married in 2014 with a father of two by Ms Harris’s side while she was campaigning to become president in 2019 and after she had been chosen as Mr Biden’s running mate.
Ms Harris is also close to Mr Emhoff’s children, model and knitwear designer Ella, 25, and producer Cole, 30, who she calls “Momala”.
Mr. Emhoff worked as an entertainment lawyer for 30 years before retiring to teach at Georgetown Law School when he and his wife moved to Washington DC.
While on the campaign trail this year, Mr. Emhoff has often told the story of missing Ms. Harris’ calls after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race because he was at a SoulCycle class in Los Angeles.
After leaving his phone in the car, Mr. Emhoff saw Mr. Biden’s resignation letter on a friend’s phone.
‘Devoted Dad’
When he finally got his cell phone back, he was “self-indulgent with the volume of messages and calls,” Mr. Emhoff said.
After reaching his wife, he said he told her: “I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m here for you, I know what to do.”
Mr Emhoff, whom Ms Harris calls “my Dougie”, apparently hoped to use it to build a reputation as a “husband”, portraying himself as a devoted husband to encourage Ms Harris. .
His social media accounts are saturated with posts about Ms Harris.
For Ms Harris’s 60th birthday last month he shared a montage of videos of them kissing, him giving her a rose and shielding her from the rain with his umbrella.
“Happy birthday, Mom. I love you so much, and I will always have your back”, wrote Mr Emhoff.
Mr Emhoff refers to himself as a “devoted dad” and “proud husband” in the bio on his social media accounts.
He has his children’s initials tattooed on his left wrist because he wanted a “visceral reminder of them”.
Perhaps this image of a modern husband and father was an attempt to convince voters that they were ready for a female president. Perhaps what they were not ready for was Mr. Emhoff.
