Who Is Doug Emhoff? Everything to Know About Kamala Harris’ Husband

In 2013, Doug Emhoff, then a divorced father of two with a high-profile job as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, was set up on a blind date.

Chrisette Hudlin, a client at the time, happened to also be friends with Kamala Harris, who was then the attorney general of California. After meeting with Emhoff at his office, Hudlin called Harris to tell her about it.

“He’s cute and he’s the managing partner of his law firm and I think you’re really going to like him,” Hudlin told Harris.

“His name is Doug Emhoff, but promise me you won’t Google him. Don’t overthink it,” Harris recalled in her 2019 book The Truths We Hold, about her conversation with Hudlin. “Just meet him. I already gave him your number. He’s going to reach out.”

Harris and Emhoff have recalled their “meet cute” fondly in interviews since. The couple hit it off immediately and married a year after being set up. Emhoff, who Harris calls “Dougy,” shared in a 2021 interview with CBS News how he crafted a text to his future wife with his friend’s help, and also left her a “ridiculous” voicemail.

“It was just adorable,” Harris recalled. “The thing about Doug is that he is exactly who he is.”

Emhoff has stood beside his wife of a decade as her star rose, going from California’s top lawyer to its junior senator before President Biden chose her in 2020 to be his running mate. When Biden won the election, Harris became the first Black, first Asian and first female VP in US history.

Emhoff got his own historic superlative: “Second Gentleman of the United States.”

Now, with his wife leading the Democratic ticket, Emhoff could become the country’s first-ever First Gentleman. Here’s what to know about him.

Who Is Doug Emhoff?

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Emhoff was raised in New Jersey with his brother and sister and moved to Los Angeles when he was in high school.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from California State University, Northridge and a J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Emhoff is an avid golfer and a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers (though Harris, from the Bay Area, supports San Francisco’s teams).

He has been close friends with Matt Walden, the husband of Disney executive Dana Walden since the 1980s. ABC News, a division of Disney, is set to host a presidential debate on Sept. 10 between Harris and former President Donald Trump. The two men’s relationship has come under scrutiny, with ABC recently telling the New York Times that there is no potential conflict of interest as Walden doesn’t weigh in on editorial decisions.

Dearest Kamala: here’s to us, our family, friends and our beautiful life together. Wouldn’t change a thing. Happy Anniversary! Love, D. pic.twitter.com/7SDRA9Efuk

— Doug Emhoff (@DouglasEmhoff) August 22, 2020

“In many ways, Dana and Matt are responsible for my marriage,” Harris joked at a fund-raiser in April 2022 at the Waldens’ home in Brentwood, according to the Times.

In 2023, Dana Walden donated $20,000 to support President Biden and the Democratic Party, according to public filings. She has not hosted a fundraiser for Harris since June 2022.

What does Doug Emhoff do for work?

Emhoff is a corporate attorney by trade who has worked at some of the most prestigious law firms in the country. In 2000, he co-founded his own firm, Whitwell Jacoby Emhoff, which eventually merged with the white-shoe firm Venable. He served as managing director at Venable’s West Coast office before becoming a partner at DLA Piper.

In his years as a litigator, Emhoff has represented large companies like the pharma giant Merck and the arms dealer Dolarian Capital, as well as individuals that include the husband of one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and former NFL star Willie Gault.

Emhoff left his law career after the 2020 election and before Harris was sworn in as Vice President. Around the same time, he began teaching law courses at the Georgetown University Law Center. He still serves as a visiting fellow at the school’s Institute for Technology Law and Policy.

Since he was elevated to Second Gentleman, Emhoff has gained a mini-fandom on social media, as well as his own hashtag: #DougHive.

His friends had joked that Emhoff should be called “the First Dude.” Others have called him the ultimate “wife guy” due to his unrelenting support of Harris.

According to the White House’s website, Emhoff has traveled to 42 states and 15 countries to meet with community leaders, legal aid providers, health care professionals, parents and business owners over the last four years.

Emhoff has also led multiple diplomatic events, including at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Paralympics as well as the inaugurations of South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol and Philippine president Bongbong Marcos.

He led the U.S. delegation in Paris for the closing ceremony of the Olympics last week, meeting with Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of UNESCO.

Emhoff has taken on several unofficial roles as Second Gentleman, such as partnering with Surgeon General. Dr. Vivek Murthy on issues of mental health and loneliness.

He has also worked with leaders on equity in the workplace, equal pay and access to reproductive health care. More recently, Emhoff has focused on issues of antisemitism.

After a 2022 meeting between Trump, rapper Kanye West and far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes, the White House announced Emhoff would lead a round table on antisemitism. Organizations such as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, American Jewish Committee, National Council of Jewish Women and the Anti-Defamation League were represented.

Emhoff, who was born to a Jewish family that fled Poland due to persecution, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on International Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, during which he laid a wreath at the camp’s “Wall of Death.” He also made a stop at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

Emhoff was also part of the White House’s launch of the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. The group’s plans were laid out in 2023 to build cross-community relationships, increase awareness and understanding around antisemitism, improve safety and reverse the “normalization of antisemitism.”

He has also brought his Jewish heritage and culture to Washington, openly celebrating Hannukah and affixing mezuzahs on the doorposts of the Vice President’s official residence at the Naval Observatory.

Trump has slammed Emhoff as a “crappy Jew” and recently said Harris was “bad and disrespectful to the Jewish people.”

Harris is attempting to thread a needle with the administration’s backing of Israel in its war against Hamas. While Biden was frequently attacked from the left for his support of the campaign in Gaza, Harris has been seen as more sympathetic to the Palestinian suffering in that war.

For his part, Emhoff has been unequivocal in his support for Israel. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Emhoff spoke before Jewish leaders, saying: “We witnessed a mass murder of innocent civilians. It was a terrorist assault, and there is never any justification for terrorism. There are no two sides to this issue.”

Who was Doug Emhoff’s first wife?

In 1992, Emhoff married film producer Kerstin Mackin. The couple had two children, Cole and Ella, who are named after jazz legends John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.

Emhoff and Mackin divorced after 16 years of marriage. She is now the founder and CEO of the L.A. production company Prettybird, and by all accounts maintains a close relationship with her ex-husband.

Harris’s stepchildren have been known to refer to their stepmother as “Momala.”

“The thing about blended families,” Harris told CNN in 2020, “if everyone approaches it in the way that there’s plenty of love to share, then it works.”

Mackin, who uses the last name Emhoff, has recently defended Harris against sexist comments about the vice president not having any biological children of her own.

“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said in a statement. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

Who are Harris’s stepchildren?

Ella, 25, is an artist, model and fashion designer who lives in Brooklyn. She went to the Parsons School of Design, where she majored in fine arts with a concentration in apparel and textiles, graduating in 2021. She regularly posts her work on social media.

In January 2021, just after the inauguration, Ella signed with IMG Models, the famed international modeling agency. She’s been profiled by the New York Times, which noted her many tattoos and penchant for not shaving her underarms.

She is also a part of The 3% Movement, an organization focused on increasing the number of female creative directors.

Ella’s older brother Cole, 29, worked at the talent agency WME and then later at Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B. A graduate of Colorado College, he studied psychology and did a presentation in 2017 on “Fake News: How Cognitive Biases Interact with Social Networking Sites to Influence People’s Perception of Misinformation.”

Cole and Greenley Littlejohn, the global product development manager for Brand ID, have been married since last October. Harris officiated the ceremony.

According to Cole’s IMDb profile, he was part of the crew for “Father of the Bride” as well as “Minari” and acted as Hank in the 2017 short “Dance Lady Dance.”

Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.