Dem heavyweights grab convention spotlight ahead of Harris’ big moment

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Kamala Harris prepares to accept historic VP nomination

Jacqui Heinrich reports on the history of woman leaders in the U.S.

Sen. Kamala Harris, of California, gives the crowning speech Wednesday on the third night of the Democratic National Convention.

Her address will come as Harris is officially nominated as the party’s vice-presidential candidate, which will make her the first Black and South Asian female running mate on a major American political party’s ticket.

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But the speech by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate will come after a list of high profile warm-up acts.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., participate in a virtual grassroots fundraiser at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Among them is former President Barack Obama, who will lay out the case for his former vice president.

Also speaking are three of the party’s biggest female names in the party: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – a progressive champion who battled Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries but who’s warmly endorsed him and collaborated with him on policy in the general election.

Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield described the lineup as a group of “significant speakers” during a session where the nightly theme of the convention is “a more perfect union.”

Prosecuting the case against Trump

Minutes after she was introduced last week by Biden as his running mate, Harris immediately latched on to the traditional attack-dog role of the number two on a national ticket and began to prosecute her case against President Trump.

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The senator from California, who has a prosecutorial record as San Francisco district attorney and later state attorney general, took aim at the president and Vice President Mike Pence, emphasizing that “as somebody who’s presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut.”

Harris is expected to paint contrasts on Wednesday night.

“She’s really going to make a robust case to the American people that the Biden-Harris administration is going to be about bringing people together, making sure everybody has a seat at the table, being inclusive and that couldn’t be a stronger contrast with the divisive way that Donald Trump has tried to lead this country,” Bedingfield shared. “She will set out a vision for a more inclusive nation in which everyone’s welcome and given equal opportunity and protection under the law.”

In an excerpt released by party officials ahead of her speech, Harris will blast Trump by saying "the constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone."

She'll charge that "right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons" and that Biden "will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose."

But Bedingfield also predicted that the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants will “tell her own story ... You’re going to really hear her talk about her life and her growing up shaped her,” adding that what Harris “really hopes tonight is that people will see themselves in her speech.”

Harris – noting that she didn’t speak at the 2016 convention when she was running for the Senate – tweeted hours before her address that she coming back to accept the nomination for vice president of the United States.

The California native won’t be delivering her address from the Golden State. Instead, Harris will speak from the same convention center in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Del., where the former vice president will address his party as he caps the convention on Thursday night.

Obama to make the case for former number two

Obama has been out of the White House for nearly four years, but former he remains extremely popular among Democrats. A Fox News poll conducted in May indicated that 78% of Democrats had a favorable view of Obama. And he’ll use that popularity on Wednesday to make the case for his former vice president and Harris.

Katie Hill, the former president’s communications director, told Fox News that in his live speech, Obama will outline “why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris possess the experience and character to lead us out of the ongoing economic and health care disasters that the current administration has blundered into.”

Hill highlighted that Obama will “talk about watching Joe’s success firsthand in helping to lead America out of a dire recession and jump-start our economy, expand health care for tens of millions of Americans, and restore our standing in the world.”

In an excerpt released by Democratic officials ahead of his speech, Obama will say "when I began my search for a vice president, I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about him is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe’s a man who learned early on to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: 'No one’s better than you, but you’re better than nobody.'"

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But Obama will also take aim at his successor in the White House and the Trump administration's attacks on the U.S. Postal Service and attempts to reduce confidence in voting by mail.

“President Obama will highlight the cynical moves by the current administration and the Republican Party to discourage Americans from voting," Hill said. "He’ll make a pointed case that democracy itself is on the line – along with the chance to create a better version of it.”

And like his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, who gave the crowning speech on the first night of the convention, the former president will stress that this election’s too important to sit out.

Ahead of his speech, the Biden campaign released a new ad that showcased the relationship between Obama and Biden.

“Folks don't just feel like they know Joe, the politician, they feel like they know the person. When Joe sticks up for the little guy. We hear the young boy who used to stand in front of the mirror determined to vanquish a debilitating stutter. And Joe talks to auto workers whose livelihoods he helped save, we hear the son of a man who once lost his job,” the former president says in the spot, which the campaign said would run on national cable TV.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee for months have blasted the efforts of Obama and Biden during their two terms steering the country. The former president’s speech will give them another opportunity to fire away.

“For eight years, Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s administration had the opportunity to make lives better for the American people, yet they repeatedly dropped the ball,” RNC rapid response director Steve Guest argued on Wednesday morning.

Obama worked tirelessly during the 2016 election on behalf of Clinton. But his efforts weren’t enough to help her over the top. Four years later, the former president has a second chance to help elect a Democrat who will build on his own legacy.

Clinton, Warren, Pelosi, in convention spotlight

For Clinton, returning the glare of a Democratic convention may be bittersweet.

She won the popular vote four years ago, but she lost the electoral college as Trump narrowly edged her out in key general election battleground states.

In the years since her defeat, the former secretary of state, senator from New York, and former first lady, has become freewheeling in her jabs at Trump. And that’s expected to continue on Wednesday night, as she gives her address from her home in Chappaqua, New York.

Clinton will say, according to excerpts released by party officials, that for "four years, people have said to me, 'I didn’t realize how dangerous he was,' 'I wish I could go back and do it over,' Or worst: 'I should have voted.'"

Clinton is expected to rally voters to ballot boxes and mailboxes alike.

"Well, this can’t be another "woulda-coulda-shoulda' election," according to her released remarks."If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back as soon as you can. If you vote in person, do it early. Bring a friend and wear a mask. Become a poll worker. Most of all, no matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”

But besides taking aim at the current president, Clinton’s expected to reflect on her years of working side by side with Biden

Sen. Warren and Biden traded fire during the presidential primaries. But after ending her own White House bid in March and endorsing the former vice president in April, her relationship with her one-time policy foe has dramatically heated up. The populist lawmaker was a contender for running mate and was thought to be on Biden’s short list.

Warren, who had a plan for just about everything during her presidential nomination run, has seen Biden embrace some of her top policy proposals. She’s returned the favor, by working with Biden’s team on policy and helping the former vice president fundraise.

The senator will give her address from the Springfield Early Childhood Education Center in western Massachusetts. In a tweet, she highlighted that “a Biden administration will build real opportunity, not just for some, but for all our children.”

Pelosi, who's repeatedly tangled with the president during his tenure in the White House, will say according to excerpts that she's "seen firsthand Donald Trump’s disrespect for facts, for working families, and for women in particular -- disrespect written into his policies toward our health and our rights, not just his conduct.  But we know what he doesn’t: that when women succeed, America succeeds.”

Fox News’ Victoria Balara contributed to this report.