New York City
The stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris, Emhoff has largely made a name for herself in New York’s creative scenes, far from Beltway politics.
By Madison Malone Kircher, New York Times Service
NEW YORK — “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I,” Ella Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter, posted on Instagram over the summer.
Emhoff, 25, was responding to years-old criticism by U.S. Sen. JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, who in an interview on Fox News once claimed the country was run by “childless cat ladies” such as Harris, who had no stake in its future.
It was a rare moment of entering the political fray for Emhoff, who has not shied away from the spotlight since Harris took office, but has largely made a name of herself far from the Beltway.
A textile artist and knitwear designer by profession — and a fixture of the New York fashion world and the city’s downtown scenes — Emhoff is, to some, a person of fascination who may seem a bit out of place when the C-SPAN cameras pan to her in a group Washington Democrats. To others, she’s a familiar face at runway shows and parties, who just happens to have Secret Service in tow.
Some who encounter her in New York are surprised to learn she has any connection to the vice president.
Liz Chick, founder of ReCreate Collective, a creative space in Brooklyn, reached out to Emhoff this year to ask if Emhoff was interested in hosting her knitting club, Soft Hands, at the venue. She knew Emhoff as a model and an artist with almost a half-million followers on Instagram — but was missing one key biographical detail.
When she sent the flyer she had made for the knitting event to her partner, “He was like, ‘You’re doing an event with Ella Emhoff?’ And I was like, ‘How do you know who Ella Emhoff is?’” she said. (He filled her in.)
The position Emhoff has occupied over the past four years — famous but only sort of, close to politics but largely silent on partisan matters — isn’t terribly unusual for a first, or second, child of Washington. But in Emhoff, some see the reflection of a cultural milieu not often represented on the national political stage.
The Miu Miu moment
Emhoff’s rise began on Inauguration Day, when she appeared alongside her brother, Cole, wearing a plaid Miu Miu coat, standing out amid a sea of dark wool coats.
Her physical presence — Emhoff is a self-described “bad” former high school basketball player who is a head taller than her stepmother — stood out, too.
Online, some observers said they saw another “artsy” young person like themselves. Others saw a style icon in the making. And some New Yorkers with a sense of hyperlocality began referring to her as the “first daughter of Bushwick,” the Brooklyn neighborhood known for its bohemianish, hipster residents.
At the time, Emhoff was studying at the New School’s Parsons School of Design, where she graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree in May 2021.
For her senior thesis exhibition, she presented an array of knitted and crocheted pieces fabricated with candy-colored yarn, including a peach-and-lavender bonnet with floppy dog ears.
“Color and childlike wonder is being contrasted with the reality of the childhood that I am trying to re-create for myself now as I grow,” she wrote in an artist’s statement.
Emhoff is the daughter of Doug and Kerstin Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer and a Hollywood producer. Ella Emhoff and her brother are named for musicians John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald and were raised in Los Angeles. Emhoff graduated from the Wildwood School, a private high school, in 2017.
Her parents divorced in 2009, and her father married Harris five years later, making her stepmother to Doug Emhoff’s two children.
In their new blended home, Harris, then-attorney general of California, became known as “Momala.”
In interviews, Ella Emhoff and her brother have shared anecdotes about the transitional early years after their parents split, when their father — who acknowledged following tabloid coverage this past summer that he had an affair during his first marriage — moved into an apartment and struggled to learn to cook.
The two siblings have spoken positively about the relationship between their mother, their father and Harris.
“They have good communication between the three of them,” Ella Emhoff told The New York Times in 2021. “They are really a unit, like a three-person parenting squad.”
In the same conversation with the Times, the siblings also expressed surprise at seeing their parents on the national stage. Cole Emhoff, who graduated from Colorado College in 2017 and works in film, has maintained a lower profile than his sister over the past four years. Harris officiated his wedding last year.
For Ella Emhoff, however, that change has come with a boost in visibility for herself and her creative projects — and with heightened scrutiny.
Batsheva Hay, a designer who made the custom dress Ella Emhoff wore under her coat on Inauguration Day, recalled how many people wrote to her congratulating her for dressing the second daughter.
“It was just such a big moment,” Hay said in a phone interview. “It really also made me think, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her.” After the inauguration, Hay said, Ella Emhoff “exploded.”
(Ella Emhoff, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this article.)
Downtown to DNC
After her inauguration appearance, Emhoff, then 21, signed a contract with IMG Models, one of the world’s most prestigious modeling agencies. About a month later, she made her runway debut at a virtual event for Proenza Schouler during New York Fashion Week. Since then, she has walked runways for designers including Prabal Gurung, Balenciaga and Miu Miu, fronted brand campaigns and attended a Met Gala.
(A spokesperson for IMG Models wrote in an email that Emhoff is no longer represented by the agency. In June, she signed with United Talent Agency.)
At New York Fashion Week in September, she attended about a dozen runway shows — walking in some, sitting front row in others — and was spotted at parties for J. Crew and Refinery29.
She was fresh off another big moment in the political spotlight. Just a couple weeks earlier, she had attended the Democratic National Convention, where she posted updates each day on Instagram culminating in her taking the stage to introduce Harris.
“Kamala came into my life when I was 14 — famously a very easy time for a teenager,” Emhoff said in her speech, standing alongside Meena Harris (Harris’ niece) and Helena Hudlin (Harris’ goddaughter).
“Like a lot of young people, I didn’t always understand what I was feeling, but no matter what, Kamala was there for me,” Emhoff said. “She was patient, caring and always took me seriously. She’s never stopped listening to me, and she’s not going to stop listening to all of us.”
Once again, Emhoff’s presence seemed to draw outsize attention — this time from conservative voices such as Charlie Kirk and from right-wing social media accounts, which shared photos of her and called her “weird.”
“We have seen brutal attacks from the right when Democrats have had children in the White House and in particular, daughters,” said Alexis Coe, a presidential historian and author of the George Washington biography “You Never Forget Your First,” citing Chelsea Clinton and the Obamas.
Emhoff, who has spoken about her tattoos and body hair making her somewhat atypical in the modeling space, does not meet certain conservative beauty standards, Coe added.
The attention, both good and bad, has not changed her, say people who know Emhoff personally. “She is still the same cool, nice, normal person,” said Hunter Abrams, a photographer who met Emhoff after Harris became vice president.
She is often spotted around New York with other creatives, including cult beanie-maker Bailey Goldberg, with whom she attended a Charli XCX concert at Madison Square Garden last month in a private box. Her friend group includes artist and fashion types — including Washington Post critic Rachel Tashjian, whose wedding she attended in 2022 with her then-boyfriend, GQ writer Sam Hine — as well as people from before her stepmother became vice president, includingFifi Hodgkinson, a fellow Parsons graduate and a roommate of Emhoff’s. (Hodgkinson did not make herself available for an interview for this piece.)
Those who have encountered Emhoff in her New York sphere, say she’s easygoing and approachable.
“She’s just very relaxed and low key,” said Hay who collaborated with Emhoff on a knitwear line in April 2021. “I don’t get the sense that she desires so much attention,” she added. (Hay also noted, perhaps dissonantly, that their collaboration was covered by Vogue. She and Emhoff served as the models.)
In other words: someone who may be useful in getting out the Harris campaign’s message.
A political role
Unlike some children of presidents, including the Bush daughters, Emhoff’s personal life has made few national headlines. She has appeared to be a team player when it comes to Harris and the national Democratic platform.
Still, she has caught some backlash, including once again from the right wing, when in November she briefly posted a link on Instagram for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. In March, she also shared a link to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency after the Biden administration had paused funding to the organization, after a dozen of its employees were accused by Israel of participating in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas.
In an email, a White House spokesperson told the Times that Emhoff “was not aware of the pause in funding by the administration when the link was posted. Once Ella was aware of the pause in funding, she removed the link.”
Emhoff grew up in an “interfaith household with both Jewish and Christian traditions,” the spokesperson added. “She does not identify with a particular faith.”
Historically, the roles of children of politicians — particularly those close to the White House — have varied widely.
“Some prefer to live quiet lives outside of the limelight,” said Coe. “We see them at state dinners, in the background, at birthday celebrations, but they’re making a concerted effort to be a footnote in history.”
But others take a more active position. That can mean working salaried jobs in the White House, including some of the Trump or Roosevelt children, Coe added.
As the Harris campaign enters its final stretch before Election Day, Emhoff has been ramping up her political involvement once again.
Last month, she appeared alongside her father in Brooklyn, where he was hosting a campaign fundraiser at a bowling alley.
“I love when I get to see Ella on the campaign trail,” her father captioned a selfie of the pair on Instagram.
“I do think that she could play a larger role and very steadily become a diplomatic instrument of the potential Harris administration,” Coe said of Emhoff.
Weeks after the Brooklyn event, her father posted a video of Emhoff offering advice about mail-in voting. “My biggest message is reach out to your peers,” she said in the clip.
These days, there’s a voter-registration link in her Instagram bio.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
