When Kamala Harris took the stage on Wednesday night, it looked very different from past conventions. 

What this would normally look like: music blaring; a convention floor jam-packed with party faithful; the energy and buzz of an excited crowd. Instead, inside the Chase Convention Center on Wednesday are blue carpet pads on the floor (dividing reporters into socially distanced boxes), making it so the limited voices are muffled and the sound of footsteps is absorbed. There are pylons for all U.S. states and territories but in place of delegates and a raucous audience, there is a handful of reporters waiting before the stage in the Wilmington Hall room. 

The most jarring thing? The eerie quiet and the shadows cast by the lights on the state pylons.

Then when it was done, the ticket and their spouses waved as they would to a crowd, which was only the small group reporters, photographers, and Secret Service agents in the room. 

Biden will be back here in the same room, Wilmington Hall, for his speech tomorrow night. 

Kamala Harris was introduced ahead of her marquee speech Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention by her sister Maya Harris, niece Meena Harris and stepdaughter Ella Emhoff, who testified to her personal qualities.

Meena Harris said her aunt is her "role model, who taught me I could do and be anything I wanted." Maya Harris said her sister was her "very first friend, my confidante, my partner in mischief and in justice."

Emhoff said her stepmother is "a rock, not just for our dad but for three generations of our big, blended family."

"I love you; I admire you; I am so proud of you," Maya said. "And even though Mommy’s not here to see her first daughter step into history, the entire nation will see in your strength, your integrity, your intelligence, and your optimism the values that she raised us with."

"We love you, Momala," Emhoff said.

Barack Obama and Kamala Harris had a last-minute switch, with Obama delivering his speech first.

Harris will now close the program with her acceptance speech.

Former President Obama delivered his most blistering speech yet against President Trump in his prime-time appearance on Day 3 of the DNC, becoming visibly emotional during his roughly 20-minute remarks. 

Obama spoke from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy. With the Constitution as his backdrop, he slammed Trump, saying he has proven he cannot do the job — speaking directly to disaffected and undecided voters. 

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe,” Obama said. "One-hundred-and-seventy-thousand Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

Obama said Biden and Harris will "restore our standing in the world" and move the country forward, and continued to hammer Trump and "those who enable him."

"They understand that in this democracy, the commander-in-chief doesn’t use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters on our own soil," he said. "They understand that political opponents aren’t 'un-American' just because they disagree with you; that a free press isn’t the 'enemy' but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up."

He called on Americans to make a plan on how they will vote, stressing the importance of voter turnout. As he spoke about voting rights and democracy, noting the conversations he had with the late civil rights advocate and congressman John Lewis, Obama appeared to get teary-eyed, with his voice almost cracking.

"I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala’s ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better," Obama said. "But here’s the thing: No single American can fix this country alone. ... So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure." 

"Do not let them take away your power," he later added. "Do not let them take away your democracy. Make a plan right now for how you’re going to get involved and vote."

The Violence Against Women's Act was one of Joe Biden's biggest domestic legislative accomplishments during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate, which is likely why domestic violence prevention got an unexpected feature at Wednesday night's DNC. 

Biden authored the law, known as VAWA, as part of a sweeping crime bill he helped write and usher through Congress in 1994. 

Biden has taken considerable criticism for his work on the crime bill, a bipartisan piece of legislation that at the time was considered an effort to curb crime and stem a national drug crisis. But in the intervening decades, the legislation has been blamed for unfairly targeting minorities and filling prisons with black men. 

But the Violence Against Women Act portion of the crime bill package has largely remained popular. The legislation gives federal officials more power in combating domestic violence. 

VAWA was reauthorized by Congress with bipartisan support three more times. But in 2018, opposition by Republicans to Democratic efforts to add protections for transgender people resulted in the law expiring.

These decades-old clips of Biden’s work in the Senate are doing double duty tonight, highlighting both a key legislative achievement and the fact that Biden was on the right side of history in advocating for women suffering in silence in a society that ignored their plight as a private issue. 

It’s arguably the overarching argument of the entire Democratic convention: Which side of history do you want to be on when it comes to immigration, gun violence, climate change, and a devastating pandemic?

It's a pitch that carefully sidesteps the parts of Biden's decades-long record that came under scrutiny amid the primary — including his opposition to bussing, his handling of Anita Hill's sexual harassment claims, and his work writing a crime bill that disproportionately locked up people of color. 

Eva Longoria Baston, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Rep. Veronica Escobar. There's a reason why many prominent Latinas are getting some prime spots.

The gender gap among Latinos is bigger than it is among Black or white voters. Latino men are more likely to back Trump than Latinas, who are more likely to support a Democrat.

Somewhere near the beginning of the end of Hillary Clinton’s virtual DNC speech Wednesday night came a staggering reminder of the 2016 election. 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could win the popular vote by 3 million ballots and still lose the White House, Clinton said. 

“Believe me,” Clinton said. “I know.” 

When the ballots cast in the 2016 election were tallied, Clinton had 2.9 million more popular votes cast in her favor than Donald Trump. But President Trump’s victories in an ideal combination of states gave him a victory with the Electoral College. 

That pathway was so narrow that Trump won one of those states, Michigan, by fewer than 11,000 votes. The result set off a fresh wave of debate and attempts to challenge the utility and fairness of the Electoral College, a system that indirectly selects the president of the United States. It drew attention to the system’s origins and historical purpose: to boost the political power of slave states. It continues to shape which states command the greatest political influence and attention today.