Vice President Kamala Harris's life has been filled with milestones ranging from her personal life to her time in the White House.
She became the first woman ever elected as San Francisco's district attorney and then California's attorney general.
Harris is also the first woman to serve as vice president as well as the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve in the office.
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Yet again, she's in the limelight as President Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside as the Democratic presidential nominee and endorsing Harris. The move places her in the running to becoming the first Black woman to head a major party's presidential ticket.
According to Social Blade, Harris has garnered over 100,000 followers on Instagram and close to 70,000 followers on X since Biden's endorsement.
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Here's what to know about Harris's life and career.
Bay Area ties
- Harris's parents moved to Oakland to study at the University of California, Berkeley. Her father then became and economic professor and her mom a cancer researcher.
- Harris went on to earn her bachelor's degree at Howard University in 1986 and then attended the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
- She worked as an attorney in Alameda and San Francisco counties, later becoming San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2010.
Career as a prosecutor
- From 1990 to 1998, Harris prosecuted drug, rape, murder and assault cases in the Alameda County DA's office.
- In 1998, Harris was called on by San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan to lead his career-criminal unit.
- She ran against Hallinan in 2003 and won. During the campaign, many criticized her relationship with former SF Mayor Willie Brown. In her tenure, she launched a program that would allow first-time nonviolent offenders to get their charges dismissed in the event they finished certain job trainings.
- Following her tenure as district attorney, she ran and defeated Republican Steve Cooley for attorney general.
- As AG, Harris implemented implicit-bias trainings for law enforcement.
Career in Washington
- In 2016, she was elected to the U.S. Senate and took office in early 2017, replacing the retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. Her win came amid a fierce campaign against Loretta Sanchez.
- With the 2020 election ahead of her, Harris began campaigning for U.S. president. Within 24 hours of her launching her campaign, she raised over $1.5 million.
- During her campaign, she was able to attract close to 20,000 supporters to a rally in Oakland. However, her campaign was short lived, lasting until December 2019, when it was suspended.
- On the campaign trail, she was critical of Biden's race, making many wonder if he would choose her as the VP candidate. Biden ultimately did.
- In November 2020, she was the nation's first female and first person of color elected as vice president.
White House tenure
- In the early months of her VP tenure, she was tasked with curbing migration from Central America. Her diplomatic efforts were met with strict criticism from both sides of the aisle.
- Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Harris became a leading voice for the protection of reproductive rights.
- The Los Angeles Times reported that Harris "may be the most targeted American politician on the internet" since taking office.
- Upon calls from Democrats for Biden to end his candidacy for a second term, Harris became a potential nominee leaders of the party were considering.
Already a slew of Democrats have come out endorsing her, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
"Tough. Fearless. Tenacious. With our democracy at stake and our future on the line, no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump's dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President, Kamala Harris," Newsom said.
Additionally, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown spoke out and said he is endorsing Harris.
"In all the jobs she has had whether it was district attorney, whether it was attorney general or whether she was person in the category of cross-examining Supreme Court nominees, she has always been outstanding, and no question in my mind that she will continue to be equally as outstanding," Brown said.
Brown was instrumental in apporting Harris to key roles in state politics. He added that he believes the party will come together and support her.
Republicans have harped on the argument that Biden is too old to run, and his lackluster debate against Donald Trump made him unqualified to be president for a second term. But Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford University, said that argument is nullified.
"For the Republicans, the argument they made about Joe Biden, about his age and his debate performance… that’s out the window," Chen said. "They are going to have to have a new campaign."
San Jose State political science Professor Melinda Jackson said Harris will need to focus her campaign on swaying undecided and younger voters.
"Democrats were turned off by Biden, so now they will be taking another look,” she said.
Within a few hours of Biden dropping out of the race, Harris was able to raise upwards of $28 million in small donor donations.
