Comedian Allison Reese has attracted the attention of millions of internet users for her impression of Vice President Harris, who was hoisted into the national spotlight last month after President Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed her as his successor.
Reese began working on her impression of the vice president in 2019 and has posted several videos over the past four years that went viral for her spot-on take of Harris’s diction and laugh.
In many of Reese’s skits, she wears a wig, suits and pearls like the vice president, or nods to Harris’s well-known phrases, including the viral “We did it Joe” call in which she called Biden in 2020 and told him he won the election.
Reese told Reuters last week Harris’s laugh was the hardest to “nail down and get right,” and revealed the learning curve she first faced.
“Also, her cadence and the speech in which she speaks, I think, how much vocal fry and nasally it is, I would get real out of breath doing it,” she told the news wire. “So I had to learn some breath control about it.”
She reportedly gained 40,000 new followers on TikTok since Biden endorsed Harris as his successor last month, bringing her total followers to more than 254,000. She has amassed over 10 million likes across all her videos on the platform.
She told CNN over the weekend she was shocked by the sudden boost in support in recent weeks.
“It was like a cartoon with my jaw on the floor for a good, like, three minutes and just like in shock, it’s go time,” she said. “Let’s do this, let’s make content.”
Harris’s well-known phrases and signature laugh has promoted a flood of social media memes and videos in recent weeks and the Harris campaign and Democrats are embracing the online hype.
Some people, meanwhile, have criticized the way Harris laughs, which she said last week she got from her mother.
The vice president in an interview on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” said the women in her life would sit around the kitchen table telling stories and were always laughing. Because of this, she said, she would never be the type of person who would restrict her laughter.
“And I think it’s really important for us to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like, and … how you should act in order to be right,” Harris said.
Reports circulated last week that actress and comedian Maya Rudolph will return as Harris on “Saturday Night Live,” in the wake of Harris’s new presidential bid.
