WASHINGTON—The November night that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared winners of the presidential election, Representative Ayanna Pressley and her husband, Conan, camped out with their daughter, Cora, in the backyard of their Dorchester home. With a projector, they cast the livestream of the victory speeches onto the side of their shed and watched history unfold.
Four days earlier, Pressley had easily won reelection herself after a whirlwind freshman term. Sworn in to Congress in the midst of a government shutdown in early 2019, she had quickly bonded with three other new congresswomen, dubbing themselves “the Squad” as they shattered glass ceilings and faced racist attacks from President Trump. She had barnstormed the country as a surrogate for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and gone public with some of her deepest personal struggles: her trauma as a survivor of sexual assault and her battle with a disease that caused the loss of her hair.
But as Harris stepped out to address the nation as the first woman and person of color to be elected vice president, Pressley, 46, was able to let her guard down, if only long enough for a deep breath.
“Watching my daughter and seeing that moment when vice president-elect Harris entered the stage in that white suit to Mary J. Blige was when I really gave myself permission to appreciate the gravity of the moment,” Pressley said.
The night could prove pivotal for Pressley, the first Black woman ever in the Massachusetts congressional delegation and its only person of color.
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