- Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate.
- Harris became the first Black and South Asian American woman chosen for national office by a major political party.
- For months, Biden’s search committee poured over records and conducted interviews before presenting a list of finalists to the former vice president.
- Biden and Harris will formally accept the Democratic nominations during the party’s convention held virtually next week.
Former Vice President Joe Biden named Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate this fall, reports CNN.
The moderate former prosecutor from California has spent her career breaking barriers.
Barrier breaking Prosecutor
Sen. Kamala Harris of California, whom Joe Biden chose on Tuesday as his running mate, will be the first Black woman and the first person of Indian descent to be nominated for national office by a major party.
Read Also: How Kamala Harris became Joe Biden’s running mate
A pragmatic moderate and one of Biden’s former rivals in the presidential race, Harris was a barrier-breaking prosecutor before being elected to the Senate in 2016.
Harris, 55, was born in Oakland, California. She is a former attorney general of California and a former San Francisco district attorney.
Kamala Harris’ Senate career
Elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris was the first Black woman in the chamber in more than a decade.
In recent years, she sought to align herself more with the Democratic Party’s left wing, initially supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill before shifting her position during the presidential campaign. She has also backed proposals to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and revise the country’s bail system.
Read Also: Kamala Harris just showed why Biden chose her as his running mate
Harris has been a vocal supporter of racial justice legislation in response to the killing of Floyd, supporting proposals to overhaul policing and make lynching a federal crime.
She serves on several high-profile committees in the Senate, including the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee.
“Fearless fighter” for VP
Biden had long said he’d consider only women as running mates, and the competition included political heavyweights such as Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams, Susan Rice, Tammy Duckworth, and Karen Bass.
Some Biden supporters pushed back against the choice given how critical Harris was of the former vice-president during the Democratic primary debates last year.
Biden said that Harris came out top because he needed “someone working alongside me who is smart, tough, and ready to lead. Kamala is that person. I need someone who understands the pain that so many people in our nation are suffering. Whether they’ve lost their job, their business, a loved one to this virus.”
Harris hails from California—a large state with a treasured voter and donor base for the Democratic Party.
Read Also: Biden VP pick: Kamala Harris chosen as running mate
While her terms as attorney general were marred with controversies—mishandling of police misconduct, refusing a DNA test that could prove a murder accused’s innocence, and a “Crime Lab Scandal,” in which a technician was accused of skimming drugs—Harris has emerged as an outspoken advocate of police reform and dismantling of systemic racism.
Becoming the first woman of color on a major party ticket in the US is a major milestone for the “fearless fighter” who has been nurturing a career in law and politics for over two decades.
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Source: CNN
