WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday night accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. vice presidency. The following is a profile of Harris.
As the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Harris, 55, becomes the first black woman and Indian-American on a major-party ticket in the country’s history, joining Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the November presidential election. The first-term senator announced her own bid for the White House in January 2019 and quit at the end of that year, citing a shortage of funds.
In March, Harris, who famously called out Biden over racial issues in a Democratic primary debate, endorsed the former U.S. vice president. In 2017, Harris was sworn in as a U.S. Senator for California, the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in U.S. history. She serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Budget.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris is a graduate of Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, before being recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and later the City Attorney of San Francisco’s office.
In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco. In 2010, she was elected as the first woman, first African-American and first Asian-American to serve as California attorney general, and was re-elected in 2014. Harris is also the third woman in U.S. history to serve as a major party’s vice presidential candidate, following Geraldine Ferraro as the Democratic vice presidential pick in 1984, and Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential pick in 2008. Harris lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Doug Emhoff, and is stepmother to Ella and Cole Emhoff.
