Kamala Harris is set Monday to do what nearly every vice president before her has done — certify the incoming president’s election.
But with this traditionally uneventful process comes a fraught moment in American history: Monday is the fourth anniversary of January 6, 2021, when then-President Donald Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol. Some of those rioters called for then-Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged as he declined to contest the results of the 2020 election.
Four years later, Harris, who was dramatically and unprecedentedly thrust to the top of the Democratic ticket in July and whose 100-day sprint to the November election ended in defeat, will have to formally certify her own loss — and Trump’s victory. While it may be awkward, Harris is doing what she knows she must, as Pence did before her.
Harris’ role on Monday, a White House official told CNN, “will be solely ministerial.”
“The vice president understands that our democracy requires elected leaders who have taken the sacred oath of office and everyday citizens alike to actively preserve it,” a senior Harris aide said.
“It is with this deep sense of responsibility and duty in mind that the vice president will certify the presidential election on January 6 and reaffirm the will of the American people,” the aide added.
With her political future uncertain, Harris is focused for now on the duties at hand in the waning days of her one-term vice presidency — a job that has just two constitutionally mandated duties: be the first in the line of presidential succession and serve as president of the Senate.
Even as Harris will certify Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, the president-elect has telegraphed plans to grant pardons to those convicted for their roles in the Capitol riot.
Four years ago, Harris, then vice president-elect, drove within several yards of a pipe bomb lying next to a bench outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters. She remained inside the DNC for nearly two hours before the bomb was discovered, according to multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the situation.
Harris will mark the anniversary — and her Monday task — with a video message.
“The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy. As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy or tyranny,” she will say in the video, according to a transcript shared with CNN.
Harris will continue, “As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile. And it is up to each of us to stand up for our most cherished principles.”
Monday’s certification may be a delicate moment for Harris, but it has plenty of historical precedent. Nineteen of 49 US vice presidents have run for president, but only six have won.
Most recently, Vice President Al Gore certified his own razor-thin loss to President George W. Bush in 2001, rejecting multiple objections by lawmakers on behalf of his own candidacy. George H.W. Bush certified his own win in 1989.
Before that, then-Vice President Richard Nixon announced John F. Kennedy’s victory.
Nixon took a moment during the 1961 certification to mark a moment he described as “unprecedented.”
“This is the first time in 100 years that a candidate for the presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated and announced the victory of his opponent,” he said after announcing the count.
Nixon continued, “I do not think that we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people of developing and respecting and honoring institutions of self-government.”
Not all election-losing vice presidents have fulfilled the duty. In 1969, then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey skipped the certification of his loss to Nixon, instead attending the funeral of the UN secretary general.
CNN’s Wes Little contributed to this report.
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