Who is Kamala Harris? US vice president and favoured Biden successor | US News

Kamala Harris cemented herself in American political history when she became the first woman to serve as vice president four years ago.

But as the Nov. 6 election approaches and questions arise about Joe Biden suitability for office, rumors have circulated that the president’s campaign has been “quietly evaluating” whether Mrs. Harris could replace him as the Democratic candidate.

The Biden campaign has He insisted that the president of the United States will continue to head the list in November and “has no plans for an alternative candidate,” but that may not be enough to stop the speculation.

Here’s a look at how Harris became vice president, why she’s being touted for the top job and what her reaction has been.

Before the vice presidency

The 59-year-old was born and raised in Oakland, California, to Jamaican father Donald Harris and Indian mother Shyamala Gopalan.

His parents, both immigrants, were highly respected in their fields: his mother was a breast cancer scientist and his father was an economics professor.

They divorced when she was seven and her mother raised her with her sister Maya in Berkeley.

Harris says the couple took her to civil rights marches while “in a stroller,” which increased her interest in the law.

He later graduated from Howard University and the University of California Hastings School of Law.

She began her long career in law as a deputy district attorney from 1990 to 1998, specializing in prosecuting child sexual assault cases, but also working on homicide and robbery cases.

In 1998, Ms. Harris was named managing attorney of a criminal unit in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office before becoming head of the Family and Children Division of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.

She became San Francisco’s first district attorney in 2004. During her first three years in office, the city’s conviction rate jumped from 52% to 67%.

She served for six years before being elected attorney general of California, where she oversaw the nation’s largest state justice department.

In 2016, she won the US Senate race in California, beating fellow Democrat Loretta Sánchez, who had 20 years of experience in Congress.

Here, he built a reputation around his work as a prosecutor and gained national attention during his forensic interrogation of Trump administration officials, including Jeff Sessions, and then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

She had become a prominent politician when launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in January 2019, with the slogan “Kamala Harris for the people.”

Democrats saw her as a promising candidate to unseat Donald Trump’s presidency in the 2020 election, but Harris ultimately dropped out of the race in December 2019, blaming a lack of finances.

Joe Biden He selected her as his running mate. in August 2021, describing her as a “fearless fighter for the little one.”

It made her the first black running mate for both major parties, and only the third running mate for both major parties in American history.

‘We did it, Joe!’

When Mrs. Harris was sworn in with Biden She became not only the first woman to serve as vice president, but also the first Black and South Asian person to assume the position and the highest-ranking woman to serve in the U.S. government.

In a touching moment after it was revealed that Biden won the presidential election, she called him while she was out running.

“We did it,” he said. “We did it, Joe! You’re going to be the next president of the United States.”

In her first speech as vice president-elect, she spoke of the many women who made her achievement possible, personally and historically.

He thanked American voters for turning out in record numbers and promised to “strive to be a vice president like Joe [Biden] “was for President Obama: loyal, honest and prepared, waking up every day thinking of you and your family.”

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” she said, apparently referring to something her late mother told her.

“My mother would look at me and say, ‘Kamala, you can be the first to do a lot of things, but make sure you’re not the last,'” Harris said in 2019.

As vice president, Harris has spoken out in favor of abortion rights and has focused heavily on addressing the immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border.

Rumors of a late takeover bid

It’s been a torrid time for President Biden lately, with the 81-year-old dealing with the fallout from a disastrous debate against former president Trump’s opponent in June.

Harris launched a staunch defense of the president just minutes after the debate ended, admitting that he got off to a “slow start” but saying he was “pushing the facts” while Donald Trump was “pushing the lies.”

Calls from within the president’s own party for him to resign have grown even louder after he mistakenly referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” at the NATO summit before referring to his vice president as Donald Trump, instead. of Mrs. Harris.

Polls suggest that most Democrats believe the vice president would do well as Biden’s successor.

Experts say he would have an advantage over other potential successors as he has already been on a winning presidential bid with Biden, has years of built-up goodwill with the party’s core constituencies and would likely control a huge campaign fund built up for re-election. of Biden. .

Harris has avoided drama and remained loyal to Biden on the campaign trail, but she has acknowledged how much is at stake, calling this election “the most existential, consequential, important election of our lifetime.”

On Saturday, he tweeted his support for the president, calling him a “leader fighting for the American people.”

She hasn’t received any questions lately about a presidential run, but in 2023 she did comment on whether she was ready to replace Biden if he couldn’t take office.

“Yes, I will, if I have to,” he told CBS, adding, “But Joe Biden is going to be fine. And let me tell you something: I work with Joe Biden every day.”

Biden said last week that he felt Harris was “qualified to be president.”

“That’s why I picked her,” he said at a news conference, adding that he wouldn’t step aside for her unless polls suggested there was no way to beat Trump in November.

“No survey says that,” he concluded.