Kamala Harris was born on October 20, 1964 in Oakland, California.
Kamala Harris is on the verge of fulfilling what would be a double dream for American Democrats: to become the country’s first female vice president and end Donald Trump’s turbulent reign.
Harris arrives in the Nov. 3 election already a repeat pioneer as California’s first black attorney general and first woman of South Asian descent to be elected to the US Senate.
But winning the vice presidency, a stone’s throw from the leadership of the United States, would be the biggest hurdle she has crossed to date and a stepping stone to the ultimate prize.
With the 77-year-old Biden expected to serve only one term if elected, Harris would be favored to win the Democratic nomination for president in four years.
It could give her a chance to make more history – as the first female president of the United States.
“My mom raised me to see what might be, without being embarrassed by what was,” Harris, 56, wrote on Twitter.
Since being chosen as Biden’s running mate in August, she has criticized President Donald Trump for his chaotic handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also of the president’s racism, economics, and crackdown on him. ‘immigration.
Harris was born to immigrants to the United States – her father from Jamaica, her mother from India – and their lives and hers kind of embodied the American dream.
She was born on October 20, 1964 in Oakland, California, then a hub for civil rights and anti-war activism.
Her graduation from Black Howard University in Washington was the start of a steady ascent that took her from a two-term attorney to San Francisco District Attorney and then California Attorney General in 2010.
However, Harris’ self-description as a “progressive prosecutor” has been grabbed by critics who say she fought to uphold wrongful convictions and opposed some reforms in California, such as a draft. of law requiring the attorney general to investigate shootings involving police.
“Time and again, when progressives have urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as district attorney and then state attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed or remained silent,” the law professor Lara Bazelon in The New York Times last year.
Yet Harris’ work was essential in forging a platform and profile from which she launched a successful Senate election campaign in 2016, becoming the second black female senator in history.
Her time as attorney general also helped her bond with Biden’s son Beau, who held the same position in Delaware state and died of cancer at the age of 46 in 2015.
“I know how much Beau respected Kamala and her job, and that meant a lot to me, to be honest with you, because I made that decision,” Biden said during his first appearance with Harris as running mate.
A seasoned activist, Harris is bursting with charisma but can quickly shift from her megawatt smile to her character as a prosecutor of incessant questioning and sharp retorts.
Clips went viral of his acute 2017 interrogation of then Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a Capitol hearing on Russia.
“I can’t be in a rush that fast! It makes me nervous,” replied an exasperated Sessions at one point.
Harris also clashed with Biden in the first Democratic debate, berating the former senator for his opposition to 1970s bus programs that forced the integration of separate schools.
“There was a little girl in California who was in second class to enter her public school, and she was bused to school every day,” she says. “And that little girl was me.
That clash didn’t stop him from choosing Harris, who brought that fiery energy to the campaign carefully managed by Biden.
During his only debate against Vice President Mike Pence, Harris raised his hand as he attempted to interrupt him.
“Mr. Vice President, I speak. I speak,” she said with a glare, silencing Pence.
A few hours after the debate, T-shirts bearing his words were offered for sale online.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
