Who is Kamala Harris, the new United States vice-president?

Following Joe Biden’s victory, Kamala Harris has made history in the United States after becoming the first woman, and a woman of colour, to be elected as vice-president-elect of the United States.

Kamala Harris added value to the Biden ticket
“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris – a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants – as my running mate,” said Biden via Twitter in early August, noting the Democrat’s great work.

“I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

After Biden’s announcement, Ms Harris tweeted that he “can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals.

“I’m honored to join him as our party’s nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief,” she said.

Those exchanges now feel like a lifetime ago.

I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 11, 2020

Who is Kamala Harris?

Harris, a former Democratic rival for the candidacy who then put her weight behind Biden, was called onto the ticket on 11 August, in a nod to the country’s most progressive voters. Biden had said previously that he wanted a woman on the ticket. She dropped out of the race last December after a campaign hurt by her wavering views on healthcare and indecision about embracing her past as a prosecutor. She has since proven to be a valuable and polished stand-in, appealing especially to women, progressives and voters of color, all critical to the party’s election hopes.

She was born and raised in Oakland, California, where she embraced African-American culture from an early age, largely because of her Indian mother, who, in addition to being a breast cancer researcher, had also been a prominent civil rights activist. However, Harris did not want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She had other ideas.

Of Indo-Jamaican descent, Kamala, 56, had positioned herself as one of the most powerful women on the current political scene. With Biden’s victory in the presidential elections, Harris will become the first female in the country’s history to assume the position of vice-president.

Her Indian mother and Jamaican fathermet at a civil rights demonstration, making a very decent case for the famed ’American Dream’. Kamala and Maya, her sister, also grew up going to these demonstrations which led them to learn a lot about the situation in the country.

However, this is not the first glass ceiling that the Democrat has broken. In 2011 she was the first female Attorney General of California, and years later she became the second black woman in the Senate, a job she still performs representing the state of California.

Harris, 56, is widely seen as an obvious candidate for the Democratic Party nomination in 2024 should Biden, who will be 78 at their inauguration on Jan. 20, decide not to seek a second term. She hasn’t weighed in publicly on such speculation.

Her background in criminal justice could help a Biden administration tackle the issues of racial equality and policing after the country was swept by protests this year. She is expected to be a top adviser on judicial nominations.

Harris, who developed a deep fundraising network during her Senate and White House bids, has been instrumental to Biden’s raking in record sums of money in the closing months of the campaign. Her selection sparked a burst of excitement in the Democratic base and among the party’s donors.

“Harris always made the most sense as a running mate for Biden because she had the ability to help him unify the Democratic coalition across racial and generational lines and was able to spike base enthusiasm,” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Harris the team player

Accusations from progressives that Harris did not do enough to investigate police shootings and wrongful conviction cases when she was California’s attorney general helped doom her own presidential run but surfaced little during her time as Biden’s running mate.

Harris has often defended her record, saying as she did in a town hall event last year that she had worked her whole career “to reform the criminal justice system with the understanding that it is deeply flawed and in need of repair.”

Trump and his re-election campaign had sought to paint Harris instead as a tool of the Democratic left who would wield power and influence behind the scenes in a Biden presidency.

Prior to her selection, several Biden aides say that Harris was able to put to rest concerns among some in the former vice president’s camp that she would be too personally ambitious to make a trustworthy partner.

Harris has shown herself to be a team player, taking on a lower-profile role and holding virtual and in-person political events that sometimes drew little news coverage, while often speaking in terms of what Biden would do for the country if elected and making an impassioned case against Trump.

“Joe and I were raised in a very similar way,” Harris said of Biden at her October debate against Vice President Mike Pence. “We were raised with values that are about hard work, about the value and the dignity of public service and about the importance of fighting for the dignity of all people.”

Harris the multi-tasker

Harris juggled her running mate duties with her day job in the Senate. Befitting her background as a prosecutor, she was a deft cross-examiner of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett at Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in October, weaving Biden’s campaign message on healthcare and climate change into her line of questioning.

As the Senate’s only Black woman, Harris emerged this year as a leading voice on racial justice and police reform after Minneapolis police killed African-American man George Floyd in May. She marched with protesters on the streets of Washington and won over some liberal skeptics.

Asked on “60 Minutes” last month why, given Biden’s age, he believed Harris would be ready to step into the presidency if something happened to him, the presidential candidate rapidly fired off five reasons.

We did it, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/oCgeylsjB4

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 7, 2020

“Number one, her values. Number two, she is smart as a devil, and number three, she has a backbone like a ramrod.

Number four, she is really principled. And number five, she has had significant experience in the largest state in the Union in running the justice department that’s only second in size to the United States Justice Department. And obviously, I hope that never becomes a question,” he said.

Harris is married to attorney Douglas Emhoff, who has been a fixture on the campaign trail. His two children from a previous marriage refer to their stepmother as “Momala.”

Meet Kamal Harris’ family

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is a first in a number of ways: the first woman, the first Black person and the first Indian-American to serve in that role.

Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, will make history, too. He will be the first man and first Jewish person to serve as a spouse to a president or vice president. Harris is Baptist.

And everyone from political strategists to racial justice activists are waiting to see whether those firsts will be mere symbolic wins or the beginning of a sea change on gender and race relations and the launch of an enduring Democratic coalition.

The symbolism alone is important. Strategists say Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. They vote in large numbers, help staff its volunteer efforts and power its wins in key races, but they have not always been well-represented among its candidates or in its policy decisions.

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month, Harris vowed that she would bring her diverse perspective to the Biden administration.

“What I will do, and I promise you this and this is what Joe wants me to do, this was part of our deal I will always share with him my lived experience as it relates to any issue that we confront,” she said. “And I promised Joe that I will give him that perspective and always be honest with him.”

That experience includes being the daughter of an Indian immigrant and a Jamaican-born father. She was raised biracial and interfaith. She is a Christian, but also attended Hindu temples with her mother.

That side of Harris’s background could help galvanize Asian-American voters, the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. and one both Democrats and Republicans have tried to woo.

That experience also means being the first graduate of a historically Black college in such a high office. Harris attended Howard University in Washington and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s oldest Black sorority. Members have turned up at her events and been active donors, many giving $19.08 to note the year the group was founded.

Harris, 56, has not shied away from using her background as a touchstone for outreach. She attended virtual campaign events with South Asian celebrities such as actress Mindy Kaling, comedian Aasif Mandvi and former U.S. attorney and Trump antagonist Preet Bharara.