It’s Official: Kamala Harris Named Joe Biden’s Vice Presidential Running Mate

August 11, 2020by Emily Deruy, The Mercury News (TNS)
It’s Official: Kamala Harris Named Joe Biden’s Vice Presidential Running Mate
Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speak after the Democratic Presidential Debate at Texas Southern University's Health and PE Center on Sept. 12, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Win McNamee/Getty Images/TNS)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — After weeks of growing speculation, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden answered on Tuesday the most highly anticipated question of his campaign, naming California Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate.

“Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau,” Biden tweeted, referring to his late son. “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.”

The decision propels Harris back onto the national stage after a disappointing end to her own run for the White House, which peaked with a shot at the man she now joins at the top of the Democratic ticket.

If elected in November, Harris would become the first woman and first African American to serve in the role — more firsts in a career full of them.

As a senator, Harris has won praise among her Democratic colleagues for her intense questioning of Trump administration officials like Attorney General William Barr and she is widely seen as someone who can hold her own on the campaign trail and in debates.

Born in Oakland in the fall of 1964 to immigrant parents from India and Jamaica and raised in Berkeley, Harris would go on to become the first African American and first woman to serve as California Attorney General.

In 2017, she became the first South Asian American senator in history and only the second Black woman to serve in the Senate.

“The obvious choice before this whole vetting process began was Kamala Harris and the final choice through all the vetting is Kamala Harris,” said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. “It’s only the third woman and the first African American woman to be a veep choice. There will be some problems because of her past as a prosecutor but what is the alternative? I think that’s what Biden is gambling on.”

Her nomination could open up a rare vacancy for a Senate seat in California, and Gov. Gavin Newsom would name her successor.

Harris’ selection was by no means a foregone conclusion, although her name began surfacing as a vice presidential contender almost as soon as she ended her own presidential campaign last December.

The junior senator from the Golden State clashed sharply with Biden during a primary debate in June, with Harris criticizing Biden for opposing busing in the past and for comments about finding common ground with avowed segregationists.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris, 55, told Biden in the widely discussed exchange. “But I also believe, and it’s personal — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”

After her parents split when she was young, Harris lived with her mother and sister in a duplex in the flatlands of southwest Berkeley and took a bus to Thousand Oaks Elementary School in a richer, whiter neighborhood — becoming part of the second class desegregated through busing.

Biden allies were reportedly critical of what they viewed as Harris’ lack of remorse for her shot at Biden, but the presidential hopeful recently was photographed while holding handwritten notes about Harris that said “do not hold grudges” and “great respect for her.”

Harris’ selection is seen as risky by some. While she has touted her work helping California homeowners hit by the foreclosure crisis and bringing violent transnational gangs to justice, progressive members of the Democratic party have criticized what they see as a tough prosecutorial record and say a Biden-Harris ticket does little to move them to the polls.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings, she launched her career as a prosecutor in the Alameda County district attorney’s office before becoming the San Francisco district attorney and eventually the state’s attorney general. In 2016, she won the race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.

And she is viewed by some as too eager for the presidency herself, prompting fear she will not be content to do Biden’s bidding.

But her supporters — the most fervent call themselves the KHive — have batted away that argument as sexist, pointing out it was well known Biden had an interest in being president when he agreed to serve under former President Barack Obama.

Biden committed in March to choosing a woman as his running mate. But Harris is just the third woman to fill that role for the two major parties, following Sarah Palin on the Republican side in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro on the Democratic side in 1984.

Harris, who now calls Los Angeles home when she’s not in Washington, D.C., married lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014. Emhoff’s two grown children, Cole and Ella, call their stepmother “Momala.”

———

©2020 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A+
a-

In The News

Health

Voting

2020 Elections

Pro-Trump Michigan Attorney Arrested After Hearing in DC Over Leaking Dominion Documents

An attorney facing criminal charges for illegally accessing Michigan voting machines after the 2020 election was arrested Monday after a... Read More

An attorney facing criminal charges for illegally accessing Michigan voting machines after the 2020 election was arrested Monday after a hearing in a separate case in federal court in Washington, D.C. Stefanie Lambert was arrested by U.S. Marshals after a hearing over possible sanctions against her... Read More

Judge to Consider Whether to Remove District Attorney Fani Willis From Georgia Election Case

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge who is deciding whether to toss Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis off of... Read More

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge who is deciding whether to toss Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis off of her election interference case against former President Donald Trump has set a hearing for Thursday that is expected to focus on details of Willis' personal relationship with a special prosecutor she hired.... Read More

Tape Reveals Donald Trump Pressured Michigan Officials Not to Certify 2020 Vote, New Report Says

AP — Donald Trump pressured two election officials not to certify 2020 vote totals in a key Michigan county, according... Read More

AP — Donald Trump pressured two election officials not to certify 2020 vote totals in a key Michigan county, according to a recording of a post-election phone call disclosed in a new report by The Detroit News. The former president 's 2024 campaign neither confirmed nor denied the recording's... Read More

Appeals Court Says Mark Meadows Can’t Move Georgia Election Case Charges to Federal Court

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows cannot move... Read More

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows cannot move charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia to federal court. Meadows was indicted in August along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others... Read More

December 15, 2023
by Dan McCue
Jury Slaps Giuliani With $148M in Damages in Defamation Case

WASHINGTON — After a four-day civil trial, a jury of eight District of Columbia residents awarded two Georgia workers more... Read More

WASHINGTON — After a four-day civil trial, a jury of eight District of Columbia residents awarded two Georgia workers more than $148 million in their defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor turned Trump acolyte. Giuliani was found liable for defaming Ruby... Read More

December 8, 2023
by Dan McCue
Appeals Court Largely Upholds Trump DC Gag Order

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday largely upheld a gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump... Read More

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday largely upheld a gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump in the criminal case accusing him of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but loosened it just enough to allow criticism of the... Read More

News From The Well
scroll top