Barack Obama speaks at the DNC; Delegates pledge support for Kamala Harris; Josh Shapiro leads Pa. in casting roll call votes

The second night of the Democratic National Convention ended Tuesday with a 35-minute speech by former President Barack Obama, who left off on an optimistic note, saying he believes America will resort to its “better angels” by rejecting former President Donald Trump.

“That is what this election is about,” he said. “Together, we, too, will build a country that is more secure and more just, more equal and more free. So let’s get to work.”

Former President Barack Obama decried political polarization and implored his fellow Democrats to reject division in remarks to the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, saying it’s up to them to listen to voters who disagree with them.

“Even when we don't agree with each other, we can find a way to live with each other,” Obama said. “That's Kamala [Harris’] vision. That's Tim [Walz's] vision. That's the Democratic Party's vision.”

Former First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, saying the former president is using “misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people lives better.”

In remarks to the convention just before former President Barack Obama was scheduled to take the stage, Michelle Obama said Trump for years “did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.” Trump was a leader of the birther conspiracy movement to baselessly attack Barack Obama over his birthplace — he was born in Hawaii.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff knows that on Thursday he will hear the awkward voicemail he left Vice President Kamala Harris 10 years ago asking her to go on a date. She makes him listen to it every anniversary.

But he said this anniversary will be different than the ones before: on the same day, she’ll accept the Democratic nomination for president.

Orchestrating made-for-TV modern political conventions requires coordination between thousands of people working behind the scenes.

Aidan Levinson, a 23-year-old law student who is one of the three whips in Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention, is one important cog in the machine.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders took up his usual causes and issues, highlighting American economic inequity, calling for universal healthcare, and urging lawmakers to get “big money” out of electoral politics during his about 13-minute Democratic National Convention speech.

And Sanders was met with rousing applause and a standing ovation from the DNC crowd when he called for a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Gaza, and a return of the captives taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced antisemitism in remarks at the Democratic National Convention and said former President Donald Trump is “a guy who peddles antisemitic stereotypes.”

Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the nation’s history, donned a blue pin he said symbolized standing against antisemitism.

The roll call meant nothing. It also meant a whole lot.

Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, officially became her party’s nominee two weeks ago, without much ceremony, following a virtual vote of delegates.

After her home state of California cast 482 votes, Vice President Kamala Harris was reaffirmed as the Democratic nominee for president following a ceremonial roll-call vote Tuesday night.

Harris, who is Black and South Asian, is the first woman of color to ever be the presidential nominee of a major party. Delegates from every state and several territories cast votes for Harris during a raucous celebration.

Led by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Aliquippa Mayor Dwan B. Walker, Pennsylvania’s Democratic delegates on Tuesday cast 178 votes to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency during a raucous, purely ceremonial roll-call vote at the national convention.

The delegates spoke as “Black and Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa blared, seconds after Motown Philly by Boyz II Men played. A DJ selected a song specific to each state, and Pennsylvania’s dual musical offering was a clear nod to the state’s longstanding east-west rivalry.

With “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen blaring in the background, Leroy Jones, chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee cast 142 votes in support of Kamala Harris on behalf of New Jersey. The state has 146 delegates total.

Gov. Phil Murphy kicked off the roll call, “We’re from Jersey baby, and you’re not!“In the great Garden State,” Murphy continued, “we care about protecting women’s rights and lifting up vulnerable communities.”

As a DJ in a cobalt blue suit jammed out to state specific songs on stage, delegations went one at a time pledging their delegates to Harris as red white and blue lights flashed in the arena and on their wrist bands.

“Let’s pass the mic around the nation!,” DJ Cassidy said.

Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti was featured in a promotional video at the Democratic National Convention for a railroad project restoring a passenger train line between Scranton and New York City.

The project will be funded by the hallmark infrastructure law from President Joe Biden’s administration and was highlighted during a video about the bill.

Moments after leaving the DNC stage, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta was coming down from his moment in the national spotlight and strategizing how his party could win his critical home state.

His biggest advice for Vice President Kamala Harris? Keep coming to visit.

A lifestyle influencer from Pennsylvania took to the DNC stage Tuesday night to describe her personal story of infertility and in-vitro fertilization, saying she was there to fight for reproductive rights.

Nabela Noor, who built her career creating content on YouTube and Instagram, said she and her husband struggled to conceive for six years and that she had a miscarriage. She said she begun the IVF process, but a few weeks before her egg retrieval, she learned she was pregnant.

At the DNC, Councilmember at-Large Nina Ahmad said there have been at least five events dedicated to engaging Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, or AANHPI, voters.

On Tuesday alone, there were three. “I could go to only one,” she joked.

North Philadelphia State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta was one of the only Pennsylvania natives to land a coveted speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, spending his two minutes on stage ripping the conservative “Project 2025″ as a “a radical plan to drag us backward.”

While holding a copy of the 900-page blueprint for a second Trump administration that was put together by a conservative think tank, Kenyatta, 34, said Republicans would overhaul the federal government under the plan, halt Medicare’s newly-granted power to negotiate drug prices, and change regulations on overtime pay for workers.

Former President Barack Obama will address the Democratic National Convention at 11 p.m. Eastern Tuesday, headlining the second night of programming, according to a schedule released by organizers.

He speech will follow remarks by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, and Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman and Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband.

Malcolm Kenyatta, a North Philadelphia state representative who’s running for auditor general, is slated to speak as part of Tuesday's Democratic National Convention programming, he told The Inquirer.

It will be the second time Kenyatta, 34, addresses convention-goers. He spoke in prerecorded remarks at the 2020 convention, which was largely virtual due to COVID-related restrictions.

Patti LaBelle is expected to perform at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, bringing a piece of Philadelphia to the Chicago-based political convention.

LaBelle, a Southwest Philly native, is the latest big name performer to appear at the DNC, following country star Mickey Guyton and singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, who performed in Chicago Monday, Billboard reports. Famed singer-songwriter James Taylor had also been scheduled to perform Monday, but was bumped from the schedule for President Joe Biden's late-night address.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived at Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court late Tuesday morning, missing his chance to testify in defense of his efforts to be on Pennsylvania's ballot as an independent candidate for President according to PennLive and WGAL.

Earlier this month a Democratic-aligned political action committee sued to remove Kennedy from the ballot. The group argued that the environmental lawyer and longtime vaccine skeptic was ineligible for the ballot because he filed for office under an address he does not live at and that he failed to amass enough signatures.

The U.S. Secret Service was checking into bomb threats made Tuesday at “various locations” in downtown Chicago where the Democratic National Convention is taking place.

Law enforcement was screening the affected areas and examining the credibility of the threat, according to a message from the joint information center established for the convention.

A former ally of presidential candidate Donald Trump will be speaking out against him later Tuesday.

Stephanie Grisham, who used to be Trump's White House press secretary and before that served as Melania Trump's chief of staff, is expected to take the stage at the Democratic National Convention.

Barack Obama was days shy of his 43rd birthday and months from being elected to the U.S. Senate when he stepped onto a Boston stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

A state lawmaker from Illinois, he had an unusual profile to be a headline speaker at a presidential convention. But the self-declared “skinny kid with a funny name” captivated Democrats that night, going beyond a requisite pitch for nominee John Kerry instead to introduce the nation to his “politics of hope” and vision of “one United States of America” not defined or defeated by its differences.

Gwen Walz, the first lady of Minnesota, expects to be spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania.

“I have news for you: I’m moving to Pennsylvania,” Walz joked Tuesday morning at the Pennsylvania delegation breakfast at the Democratic National Convention. "I was just there on Sunday.”

An ambitious commonwealth governor with cross-aisle appeal. A finalist to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. A likely future presidential candidate.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear spoke to the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday morning, and he noted that he and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — leaders of “two great commonwealths” — had some shared experiences.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker turned Tuesday's Pennsylvania delegation breakfast at the Democratic National Convention into a pep rally for Vice President Kamala Harris and other members of the party on the November ballot.

“Did y’all know the mayor of Philadelphia used to carry pompoms?” she asked the crowd of about 200 people. “I was a cheerleader for a little group called the Oak Lane Wildcats.”

CHICAGO — In President Joe Biden’s inaugural address in January 2021, he said America was in a “winter of peril and possibility.” It was nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, months of racial unrest, and just weeks after a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Now, less than four years later, Biden used his valedictory address to share a hopeful update: it’s summer in America, and winter has passed.

The 2024 Democratic National Convention continues Tuesday, with Vice President Kamala Harris welcoming two popular Democrats onto the stage.

Headlining Tuesday’s program is former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who will both deliver primetime speeches tonight in Chicago. The couple endorsed Harris in a joint phone call last month, and Obama’s friendship with the vice president dates back nearly two decades, when she was an early backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Primetime programming at the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Eastern and last four hours, though most broadcast networks won’t begin their live coverage until 10 p.m.

The convention will stream live on the DNC’s official website and across all its social media channels.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign appears to be sticking close to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention this week, while former President Donald Trump has campaign appearances schedule in battleground states around the country.

With the DNC set to run through Thursday, Chicago will serve as a temporary home base for Harris’ campaign for much of the week. But on Tuesday, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, plan to hold a rally at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee — about a 90-minute drive from Chicago.

Sen. JD Vance said he plans to be in Pennsylvania “a lot, taking our message to the whole state,” as he visited Philadelphia on Monday for the second time this month.

“Pennsylvania is an incredibly important state to me and President Trump,” Vance said during a visit to DiSorb Systems, a medical waste management company in North Philadelphia.