Kamala Harris challenged young people to “stay in the fight” during a speech in Maryland on Tuesday, her first major address since conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump last month.

In her remarks, Harris expressed optimism in a future led by many of the young leaders in the room, praising their “passion” and “resolve” in spite of an electoral setback that threatens many of the causes they care deeply about.

“I ask you to remember that this struggle is not new. It goes back nearly 250 years to Lexington and Concord,” Harris told a group of students, recent graduates, volunteers and apprentices at Prince George’s Community College. “Generation after generation, it has been driven by those who love our country, cherish its ideals and refuse to sit passive while our ideals are under assault.

“This fight now, it continues with you. You are its heirs,” the vice-president said.

Since the November election, Harris has maintained a relatively low profile. Next month, the vice-president, in her ceremonial role as president of the Senate, will certify Trump’s victory and participate in the transfer of power. What she has planned next is unclear – but her punchy, optimistic speech made clear she had no plans to remain on the sidelines.

Harris’s remarks come as Democrats grapple with their unexpectedly sweeping defeat, with Republicans winning control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. One of the party’s most bitter election day disappointments was the erosion of support among young people, long viewed as a key Democratic constituency and a group that Harris worked to mobilize during her whirlwind 107-day campaign.

According to an analysis of early data by Tufts University’s center for information and research on civic learning and engagement (Circle), youth voter turnout in 2024 fell below the historic levels reached in 2020. Though Harris ultimately won youth voters overall, Trump made major gains among the cohort compared to four years ago. The shift was especially pronounced among white young people and young men.

Since Barack Obama’s 2008 election, successful Democratic presidential nominees have won at least 60% of the youth vote. According to APVoteCast, Harris won 51% of voters under 30, a precipitous decline from 2020, when Joe Biden won 61% of those voters.

Yet Harris’s entry into the presidential race thrilled many young liberals, especially women, motivated by her robust advocacy for reproductive rights. Nodding to a viral meme that flooded social media with coconut tree emojis, Harris said: “I ask you to remember the context in which you exist.” The line rippled across the auditorium as the crowd laughed and cheered. With a wide smile, Harris nodded: “Yeah I did that.”

As vice-president, she toured college campuses and spoke to issues that resonated with students and activists, including climate change and gun violence – which she raised on Tuesday to condemn the school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, that left three people dead, including the 15-year-old shooter.

“We as a nation must renew our commitment to end the horror of gun violence, both mass shootings and everyday gun violence that touches so many communities in our nation,” she said.

As Harris contemplates her political future, she could emerge as a leader in the anti-Trump resistance, particularly around the protection of reproductive rights and democratic norms, which she championed during her campaign. There is speculation that she could run for governor in California, her home state where she served as the attorney general and a US senator. At 60, she could even make another run for the White House in 2028, though she would likely face several other Democratic aspirants in a primary.

Harris made no mention of her own future on Tuesday, but implied that she too intended to stay civically engaged, drawing inspiration from the tens of thousands of letters she has received in recent weeks.

But she also acknowledged the “disappointment” that has left many people feeling “tired, maybe even resigned”.

“Let me be very clear,” Harris said. “No one can walk away.”

“The true test of our commitment is whether, in the face of an obstacle, do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves?” the vice-president added, drawing a prolonged “mmhmm” from several attendees that made everyone in the auditorium, Harris included, laugh.

The speaking program on Tuesday underscored Harris’s message, which she first delivered in her concession speech, that young people should continue to believe that anything is possible despite seeing her history-making candidacy extinguished by a man who has stoked racial resentment and anti-immigrant backlash.

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Aruna Miller, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, shared her story of arriving in the US from India at the age of 7, speaking no English. Now she is the first woman of color and immigrant to hold statewide office in Maryland. “Shine you crazy diamonds,” she told the young volunteers.

Angela Alsobrooks, whose historic election to the Senate was one of the few bright spots for Democrats on election night, said the vice-president was the “consummate reminder of the two things that you should never be told: that you’re too young or nobody’s ever done it”.

Alsobrooks will be the first African-American politician to represent the state in the Senate when she takes the oath of office next month.

Addressing the student leaders in the audience, the Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said he saw more than just inspiring stories: “I see people who understand the assignment.”

Then the state’s first Black governor spoke to the young people of color who are entering the workforce and civic society just as the Trump administration vows to rescind efforts to expand diversity and equity championed by the current White House.

“You were never in a room because of someone’s social experiment. You were never in a room because someone wanted to sprinkle diversity into the room. You were in that room because you belong there, and you were in that room because that room was incomplete until you showed up,” he said, drawing loud applause.

In Harris’s remarks, she reminded young people that progress is often the hard-won result of everyday Americans pushing their political leaders forward.

“The movements for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the United States of America itself, would never have come to be if people had given up their cause after a court case, or a battle, or an election did not go their way,” she said.

“I urge you then, after you have had some rest. In fact, I challenge you to come back ready,” Harris continued, concluding her remarks. “Ready to chart our path to the future, chin up, shoulders back, forever impatient for change”.