Joe Biden has chosen Kamala Harris, the leading senator from California, whose political career has included many barrier-breaking moments, as his running mate announced his campaign on Tuesday.
The decision comes more than a year after Harris, who was also a Democratic candidate in 2020, came into conflict with Biden over racial issues during the first primary debate. If elected, she would be the nation’s first female, first Black and first Asian vice president.
Picking Harris, who is 55, will also provide the ticket with some generational variation. Biden, who is 77, would be the oldest presidential candidate in American history.
Biden’s announcement has sparked weeks of speculation and marks Biden’s biggest decision to date as the presumptive Democratic nominee – a detail that Biden himself noted in his announcement.
“You make a lot of important decisions as president. But the first is who you choose to be your vice president. I have decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike. Pence and then to lead this nation from January 2021, “Biden wrote in an email of his campaign to supporters.
Harris, the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate, was first elected in 2016 after serving as California’s attorney general and therefore also San Francisco District Attorney. Harris, a resident of Oakland, California, and the child of Jamaican and Native American immigrants, said she was inspired to attend law school after participating in civil rights protests with her parents.
“She’s been a fighter and a principled leader and I know it because I’ve seen her up close and seen her in the trenches,” Biden told Harris on a virtual money lender in June.
As attorney general, Harris worked closely with Biden’s late son, Beau Biden, when he was Delaware’s attorney general, especially in challenging large banks in the wake of the housing crisis. In her book, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” Harris says the couple “talks every day, sometimes several times a day.”
Because of their friendship, Harris’s attack on Biden came as a shock to the Biden campaign, his family, and the candidate himself during the first Democratic primary debate – about his record of bus and working with segregationists.
“I was ready for them to come after me, but I was not ready for the person who came to me as she came to me. She knew Beau, she knows me,” Biden said in an interview later that summer. He said Harris had “mischaracterized” his position.
The surprise and backlog of that debate moment in Miami was still top of mind for Biden’s wife Jill as soon as March. The former second lady said in a virtual fundraiser, “Our son Beau talks so much about her and, you know, and how awesome she was. And not that she is not. I do not say that. But it was just like a punch for the gut. It was a little unexpected. “
Both Biden’s and Harris’ allies have acknowledged that in the months since she left the race, Harris has given her full support to the Biden campaign. She has often conducted virtual campaigns for Biden, holding joint fundraisers with the candidate and roundtable round issues such as the racial differences in cases of coronavirus and protecting the Affordable Care Act. In a June virtual lender, she raised $ 3.5 million for the campaign.
Harris was praised for her punctual questioning of Attorney General Bill Barr and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during their respective confirmation hearings, and marked her record as a prosecutor.
But her record as a prosecutor, especially over issues such as marijuana convictions and truancy, has also been a source of criticism, especially from younger, more progressive voters.
Harris has been dealing with pushbacks in recent weeks from some of Biden’s allies who said the former presidential candidate was too ambitious – criticism that many were quick to point out was sexist.
“Our campaign is full of ambitious women who are all out for Joe Biden,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a tweet. “Whoever he chooses from the highly qualified options to help him win the country and unite, she will also be one.”
Harris responded to a virtual conference with Black Girls Rock earlier this month.
“There will be resistance to your ambition,” she said. “There will be people who tell you: ‘You’re out of your job. But that does not make you suffer.’
Harris ended her presidential bid in December, dogged by fundraising problems and reports of power struggles at the top of her campaign.
Due to the severe pandemic, Harris lived in her Washington, DC, apartment with her husband, Douglass Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer. She attended Howard University for her undergraduate degree and was a Capitol Hill internship place in the same office she occupied today.
