Hope and anxiety grip voters in Kamala Harris’ Bay Area haunts

BERKELEY  —  Outside a modest yellow bungalow in West Berkeley, some dealt with their election day anxiety by making a pilgrimage to Kamala Harris’ childhood home to snap selfies, hoping they would turn into treasured memories of the day the nation elected its first women President.

“We’re very proud,” said Diana Shapiro, 53, who lives about a block away from the apartment where Harris spent part of her childhood. Shapiro’s front yard is adorned with Harris posters; inside her living room is a framed portrait of the vice president. Shapiro predicted the neighborhood, nicknamed “Poet’s Corner,” would erupt into a spontaneous street party if Harris wins. “It would be amazing to have our first woman president,” she said.

But first, she had to wait. As the sun set on election day, people across the country seemed to be holding their breath. They were waiting for the polls to close, so the election results could start to come in. Waiting to find out, after one of the wildest and most expensive political campaigns in American history, who would be president.

Perhaps nowhere in the country was this waiting more acute — or the excitement and anxiety higher — than in the Bay Area.

Would the hometown girl make good? Would Kamala Harris, a self-proclaimed “daughter of Oakland” who spent part of her childhood in Berkeley and launched her political career with an underdog triumph in the 2003 race for San Francisco District Attorney, win the highest office in the land?

A photograph of Kamala Harris, Maya Harris and their mother, Shyamala Gopalan, featured in Kamala Harris’ book “The Truths We Hold.”

(Courtesy of Kamala Harris)

Another Poet’s Corner neighbor, Joanie McBrien, 59, said she had headed out into the streets to try to walk off her anxiety. “It’s just too stressful,” she said. “It’s a close race and who knows what will happen.”

Others in the Democratic stronghold of the Bay Area, however, decided to to throw caution to the winds and start partying early.

Across the Bay Bridge at John’s Grill in downtown San Francisco, streets were closed off and already mobbed by early afternoon with election day celebrants crowding in for the restaurant’s traditional election day lunch. The George Washington High School Marching Band played, and long-time San Francisco politicos, dressed in their election day best, worked the crowd and posed for photos.

“She won,” insisted former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, an early mentor to Harris (and briefly, a romantic partner). Though polls were still open for nearly eight more hours, Brown, sporting a stylish maroon suit and a top hat, said he was so confident of the result, that he was “referring to this as the first celebration of her victory.”

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown speaks outside John’s Grill in San Francisco in 2023.

(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

Nearby, Manny Yekutiel, the owner of Manny’s, a restaurant and civic gathering space in the city’s Mission District, was buzzing around showing off his “patriotic nails” painted red white and blue and festooned with glitter. “I’m very excited to have Kamala Harris as my next President,” he said, saying he was certain it would be “the beginning of a whole new moment in history for our country.”

So fervid was the excitement that many local news sites published guides to public election parties, where Bay Area residents could go celebrate or — though no one would dare say it — mourn the results.

Back in Oakland, many voters walked out of polling stations saying they felt the weight of history.

“Kamala’s a woman of color, and from Oakland,” said Sophia Lewis, 24. While Lewis had some criticisms of Harris’ policies she said she far preferred her to Trump. “A lot of people are feeling prideful.”

Dropping off his ballot in Oakland, Kasper Dilmaghani, 35, said even thinking about having voted for a Black woman from Oakland for president was awe inspiring. “I’m getting chills,” he said.

Times Staff Writer Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.