After months of vice-presidential candidate vetting, Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate for this year’s 2020 Presidential Election.
Kamala Harris is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States Senator from California since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Harris is the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris is a graduate of Howard University and University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office before being recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and later the City Attorney of San Francisco‘s office. In 2003, she was elected the 27th District Attorney of San Francisco, serving until 2011.
Harris was narrowly elected Attorney General of California in 2010, and was re-elected in 2014. Harris faced criticism from reformers for tough-on-crime policies she pursued while she was California’s attorney general. In November 2016, she defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to succeed outgoing Senator Barbara Boxer, becoming California’s third female U.S. Senator. As a senator, she has supported healthcare reform, federal descheduling of cannabis, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, a ban on assault weapons, and progressive tax reform. She gained a national profile after her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including U.S. Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr, and Associate Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Harris ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election, briefly becoming one of the highest-profile candidates before ending her campaign on December 3, 2019, citing lack of funds to continue.
Today, Joe Biden has made it official, Kamala Harris is Biden’s Vice-Presidential candidate running mate for this year’s 2020 Presidential Election.
