Kamala Harris: Who is the woman Joe Biden wants as his replacement?

Who is Vice President Kamala Harris?

US Vice President Kamala Harris may not be a household name in the UK, but she likely will be very soon.

On Tuesday, she confirmed she secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become the party’s presidential nominee.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in a post on X.

“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

If the party accepts her at the Democratic Convention in August, she will face Donald Trump as the first black woman to be nominated to fight a presidential campaign.

She also has the backing of former president Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary, but her path to the nomination is not clear and will likely be decided by party delegates at the Democratic convention on August 19.

In any case, the public will be getting to know Harris a lot more in the next few weeks - here's what we know.

Her early life

Ms Harris was born in 1964 in Oakland, California, to immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.

Her hometown and nearby Berkeley were at the heart of the racial and social justice movements of the time, and Harris was both a product and a beneficiary.

She spoke often about attending demonstrations in a stroller and growing up around adults “who spent full time marching and shouting about this thing called justice.”

The 59-year-old was educated at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, DC before earning a law degree at the University of California.

She began her legal career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, before being elected as San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003.

During her time in the role, she created a re-entry programme for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy.

In 2010, she was elected California’s attorney general, the first woman and black person to hold the job.

Political career

Harris was formerly an opponent of Biden's, when she ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race but became his running mate after dropping out.

She won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney and, when elected California’s attorney general in 2010, she was the first woman and black person to hold the job.

After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of President Trump's administration officials during congressional hearings.

She launched her presidential campaign in early 2019 with the slogan “Kamala Harris For the People", and her strong debating style - including a searing attack on Biden - won her plaudits.

But the early promise of her campaign eventually faded. Facing fundraising problems, she abruptly withdrew from the race in December 2019, two months before the first votes of the primary were cast.

Biden named the California senator as his running mate in the summer, making history by selecting the first black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket.

In choosing Harris as his running mate in 2020, Biden called her a “fearless fighter for the little guy.”

She then became the first woman and the first person of colour to be vice president.

Vice president

Once in the job, Harris worked to stem migration from Central America, but her efforts did not stop the movement of people leaving their corrupt and impoverished countries to seek safety and prosperity in the US.

Nor was there much progress to be made on voting rights, another issue that was part of Harris’ portfolio.

When Republicans limited ballot access in various states, Democrats lacked the necessary muscle in Congress to push back at the national level.

Harris eventually carved out a role as the administration’s most outspoken advocate for reproductive rights after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had guaranteed abortion access nationwide.

Much of Harris’ work has focused on bolstering her party’s coalition of women, young people and voters of color.

And in halls of power dominated by men — both in Washington and around the world — she has remained keenly aware of her status as a political pioneer.

She often repeated a line she credited to her mother: “Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last."

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