Sitting in the crowd watching California Sen. Kamala Harris lead her first town hall in Iowa City, Sofya Tartisio said she felt overcome. This was her first town hall. Her first time to hear a candidate stump. And all of this for the first election she will caucus in.

Unlike others, Tartisio said she did not come to shop candidates. Tartisio is all in on Harris already.

"The moment (Harris) announced her run, I donated," said Tartisio a sophomore at Kirkwood Community College. "Mind you, I am a student. I work part-time. I have other obligations, but I feel like this was an obligation. I wanted to do everything I could to support this movement."

Listening to Harris, Tartisio felt overcome when Harris' speech touching on "the talk."

"In America today, there are families who sit down with their son when he turns 12 years old to have what's called 'the talk,' during which those mothers and fathers explain to their son, 'Son, you may be stopped. You may be arrested. You may be chased. You may be shot because of the color of your skin,'" Harris said.

"Let's speak truth: We have a criminal justice system in our country that's in drastic need of reform that has, in many ways, been informed by bias but can be informed in a way where we can be better so that no young man, whatever his color, has to live in fear."

Tartisio, a black woman, said she felt overcome because she has a brother. And she was reminded of her family's talk with him.

"When she brought that up, I was immediately in tears," Tartisio said. "It's real. It could be anybody's brother, but I took it personally. If that was my brother — just because of discrimination, injustice in the criminal justice system — that would kill me inside. I wouldn't be able to believe in this country whatsoever. I can't sit aside and do nothing."

Wednesday evening, Harris filled up the University of Iowa's Memorial Union. Before coming in, the line ran the length of the lobby, through the hall and down the stairwell. One Harris campaign staffer said was at 915.

"Let’s speak truth: We are a society that pretends to care about education, but not so much the education of other people’s children," Harris told the crowd Wednesday. Harris said that preventing teachers from having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet was part of prioritizing the country's children.

For the night, Harris’s flagship platform item was her proposal to increase the average pay of Iowan teachers by $12,200 over several years. Her plan targets Iowa’s roughly 36,000 teachers in hopes of increasing recruitment and retention of the state’s K-12 educators, reported the Des Moines Register.

"I believe you can judge a society based on how it treats its children," Harris said. "So then the greatest expression of investing in children is investing in teachers."

"But how are you going to pay for it?" Harris queried, as she has been asked on the campaign trail. She came with answers.

Her pay raise for teachers is contingent on congressional approval and would cost an estimated $315 billion over 10 years. This increase would be paid for by “strengthening” the estate tax and addressing its perceived loopholes in the federal tax code.

► Related: Here's how Kamala Harris' new teacher pay policy could play out in Iowa.

Towards the end of her speech, Harris turned toward foreign policy.

"Let's speak truth: Russia interfered in the election of the President of the United States," Harris said, referring to the Justice Department's finding of a "sustained effort" to hack emails and computer networks associated with the Democratic party during the 2016 presidential election. "Let's also speak truth that we have a commander in chief that takes the word of the Russian president over the word of the American intelligence community on that issue."

Harris also decried the seeming affinity between the President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

"We have a commander in chief who takes the word of a Saudi prince over the word of the American intelligence community when it comes to a journalist (Jamal Khashoggi) who was assassinated, a journalist who had American credentials," Harris said. "And we cannot afford that kind of approach to our security and our standing in the world."

RaQuishia Harrington, recently elected to the North Liberty City Council, said she was excited to see a "knowledgeable" candidate that was thinking big.

"I think she is thinking on the larger scale than just here. In order for the United States to drive the way, we also have to be able to work and communicate and make changes across the globe," Harrington said. "We will continue to have people that want to come here."

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Zachary Oren Smith writes about government, growth and development for the Press-Citizen. Reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com or 319-339-7354, and follow him on Twitter @zacharyos.