Kamala Harris Promises a "Peaceful Transfer of Power" In Her Concession Speech

There are some things that are certain with elections. There is always one winner, they make a speech as soon as they typically can, voters get upset, and the losing candidate makes a concession speech after they concede the election. So, did Kamala Harris concede yet for the 2024 election and has she made a formal speech about losing the race?

In the early hours of Nov. 6, 2025, Donald Trump was declared the winner of the election even before all of the votes came in from each state. This is because, at that time, he already had 277 electoral votes. A candidate needs just 270 to win. With Harris having made out with 224, that left her shy of enough votes to be the next president.

As of the morning on Nov. 6, Harris had not yet conceded at that time. According to Newsweek, her campaign had planned to wait until all votes were counted and the election was truly completed in order for Harris to make any kind of speech to the public.

"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet," Harris's campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told the outlet on Nov. 5. "We will continue, overnight, to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So you won't hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow."

Later in the day on Nov. 6, at Howard University, Harris delivered her concession speech. In it, she said that she spoke personally with Trump to congratulate him. She also promised a "peaceful transfer of power" to the president-elect.

"The outcome of this election is not what we hoped, not what we fought, not what we voted for," Harris said. "But hear when I say… the light of America's promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting."

Historically speaking, a losing candidate in a presidential election in the United States will publicly admit defeat to their opponent and officially declare the other candidate the winner in the presidential race with a concession speech. Typically, the candidate points out that the opponent won the election and might even applaud the opponent for their accomplishment.

There are also often words of strength mixed in there, with a call to action from supporters to continue to right for the values that the losing candidate had promised to uphold. The concession speech is a way to formally end the election, in a way, even if all of the votes aren't in at the time of the speech.

A losing candidate does not have to make a concession speech at the end of an election. However, there has never been a case where a candidate refused to concede after an election. After the 2020 election, Trump failed to concede until two months later, in January 2021.

It became tradition after William Jennings Bryan sent a telegram to William McKinley in 1896 and congratulated him on his win. From there, a concession and then a concession speech, became the norm. But it is not a requirement, even if the losing candidate typically wants to say their farewell from the election.