As President Joe Biden announced he will not seek re-election, Kamala Harris seems poised to win the nomination. She has rapidly garnered support from Biden and many key Democrats.
If Kamala Harris secures the formal nomination at the Democratic National Convention next month, she will qualify to compete against former President Donald Trump in the race to the White House in November.
Here are 30 things you need to know about Kamala Harris:
Kamala Harris, born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, is currently 59 years old.
Her father, Donald Harris, is of Jamaican descent, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who passed away, was an immigrant from India.
She has a sister named Maya Harris, who is her advisor.
Both of Kamala Harris’s parents were scholars, leading to the family frequently moving. Her father was an economist teaching at Stanford University, while her late mother was a biologist.
Her mother was a breast cancer researcher and a pioneer in the field. She immigrated to the U.S. from India at the age of 19 and earned a Ph.D. around the time Kamala was born.
Kamala Harris’s mother had a profound impact on her during her upbringing. She once said, “My mother used to say, Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.”
Her parents divorced when she was 7 years old.
In her memoir “The Truths We Hold,” Kamala Harris discussed her parents’ divorce, noting the increasing complexity of their relationship over time.
“As time went on, things got more and more fraught. They weren’t friendly to each other anymore. I knew they loved each other deeply, but they seemed to become like oil and water,” Kamala wrote. “By the time I was 5, their relationship had broken under the strain of irreconcilable differences.”
Growing up in a mixed-race family, Kamala Harris was exposed to both her parents’ religious traditions.
Her neighbors often took Kamala and her sister to a black church in Berkeley. Meanwhile, her mother was Hindu, introducing her to the religious beliefs and core principles of Hinduism.
Kamala Harris currently practices as a Baptist. She has given speeches at the 2022 National Baptist Convention.
In 2014, Kamala Harris married lawyer Douglas Emhoff, with the couple being set up by a mutual friend.
Douglas Emhoff had two children from a previous marriage, Ella Emhoff and Cole Emhoff, who became Kamala Harris’s stepchildren.
When Kamala was of preschool age, the family moved to California.
As part of the “busing to eliminate racial segregation” program, Kamala, who was living in Berkeley at the time, was one of the first students bused to formerly white schools.
Kamala Harris’s grandparents and relatives from her mother’s side remained in India after her mother immigrated to the U.S.
Kamala Harris often visited India to see her mother’s family and engaged in frequent political discussions with them. Her grandparents held liberal views on Indian politics while the values in India at the time were generally more conservative.
In a speech geared towards Indian-American audiences in 2018, Kamala Harris mentioned, “I remember the stories they told, and the passion with which they spoke about the importance of democracy.” She said that conversations with her grandfather in particular had a profound impact in shaping who she is today.
Kamala Harris obtained her undergraduate degrees in economics and political science from Howard University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), and her law degree from the University of California, Hastings.
She passed the bar exam and gained admission to the State Bar of California in 1990.
Shortly after, she was appointed as a Deputy District Attorney in Alameda County, her first job in the legal field.
Kamala Harris was appointed to two government positions by then-California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.
While Brown was married at the time, he had a dating relationship with Kamala Harris.
Brown appointed Kamala Harris to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, and later on to the California Medical Assistance Commission.
Her annual salary on the commissions ranged from $99,000 to $114,000 while she also served as a prosecutor.
In 1998, Kamala Harris was hired as an assistant district attorney by San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan.
During her time in the district attorney’s office, Kamala Harris worked in the Career Criminal Unit, primarily focusing on prosecuting violent crimes and cases that fell under the “Three Strikes Law.”
In 2003, Kamala Harris ran for the San Francisco District Attorney position, competing against her former boss Hallinan.
They had disagreements over Proposition 21, allowing minors to be tried in adult court instead of juvenile court. Kamala Harris opposed the proposition.
Hallinan supported the proposition and ultimately restricted Kamala Harris from responding to media inquiries about it, leading to her resignation.
During her campaign, Kamala Harris pledged to “smartly fight crime,” vowed not to seek the death penalty, and only utilize “Three Strikes Law” for violent offenders.
She also criticized Hallinan for having a low conviction rate and failing to stop gun violence in impoverished black communities.
Ultimately, Kamala Harris won the election with 56% of the votes.
From 2004 to 2011, Kamala Harris served as the San Francisco District Attorney, becoming the first black woman to hold the position.
During her time in office, Kamala Harris took a liberal stance on certain issues while adopting a tougher prosecutorial approach on others.
She strongly advocated for the legalization of same-sex marriage and presided over a same-sex wedding after the legalization in San Francisco in 2004.
During her bid for the Democratic nomination as Vice President in 2020, Kamala Harris faced criticism from Democrats for her record on marijuana-related crimes. During her time as district attorney, she oversaw approximately 1,900 marijuana-related convictions, some resulting in prison sentences.
In 2010, Kamala Harris narrowly defeated Republican Steve Cooley by 0.8% to become the California Attorney General.
During her tenure from 2011 to 2017 as the California Attorney General, Kamala Harris refused to enforce Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in California; she also supported penalties for parents whose children frequently skip school; and reached settlements with major oil companies, including BP and Chevron.
She became the first woman, first African American, and first South Asian American to serve as California Attorney General.
In 2016, Kamala Harris defeated Congresswoman Linda Sanchez with over 20% of the vote to secure a Senate seat.
During her term in the Senate (January 3, 2017, to January 18, 2021), she served on the Judiciary, Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Budget Committees.
During her brief time in the Senate, Kamala Harris successfully ushered through some legislation.
In 2018, her bill promoting pro bono legal services (POWER Act) was passed and became law in September 2018.
That same year, she introduced the “Justice for Victims of Lynching Act,” which would have classified lynching as a federal hate crime, but it failed to pass the Senate. However, a similar bill, the “Emmett Till Antilynching Act,” was passed by Congress during her Vice Presidency and signed into law by President Biden in 2022.
In 2020, in her final year in the Senate, Kamala Harris introduced and successfully passed the “Secure 5G and Beyond Act,” aimed at strengthening America’s telecom systems and infrastructure.
During the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Kamala Harris drew national attention for her sharp questioning of the judicial nominee.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in 2018, she posed a series of questions to Kavanaugh regarding sexual assault allegations, including inquiring if he would take a polygraph test and suggesting an FBI investigation into the allegations.
Kavanaugh responded, “I will do whatever the committee wants.”
There was no evidence supporting the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, and he vehemently denied the accusations.
Throughout the hearings, Kamala Harris, along with other Democrats, attempted to stall the nomination process citing that they had not received some related documents.
As the Judiciary Committee proceeded with a vote to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination, Kamala Harris and other Democratic senators walked out in protest.
Kamala Harris ran for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination but ultimately did not succeed.
Despite being seen as a potential frontrunner, she lagged behind in early polls.
Her poor polling led to Kamala Harris dropping out of the race on December 3, 2019, a month before the Iowa Democratic caucus.
Although Kamala Harris eventually became Biden’s running mate, she criticized presidential candidate Biden during the primaries.
During a debate in 2019, Kamala Harris condemned Biden’s opposition to busing to desegregate schools in the 1970s.
In a heated exchange, Kamala Harris asked Biden, “Do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America?.”
She also criticized her Democratic opponent for collaborating with segregationists like former Mississippi Democratic Senator James Eastland and former Georgia Democratic Senator Herman Talmadge, stating that Biden “wasn’t ready” to lead the country.
In 2020, Kamala Harris encouraged her supporters to donate to a non-profit bail fund, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, online.
The organization’s revenues surged after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, being used to bail out those arrested for participating in “Black Lives Matter” protests and riots, including some violent offenders.
During her time in the Senate, Kamala Harris advocated for legislation addressing human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist regime. Alongside New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she wrote a letter to the Secretary of State in 2020, mentioning the Chinese regime’s atrocities against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
She also raised concerns over the suppression of freedom in Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist regime.
In her time in the Senate, Kamala Harris co-authored the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in 2020, which became law, imposing sanctions on foreign individuals and entities that are complicit in human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Kamala Harris voted to convict President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial in 2020, where Trump was accused of soliciting Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden in exchange for military aid. While Trump was impeached in the House, he was acquitted in the Senate.
Kamala Harris has been an advocate for stricter gun control laws. In the Biden administration, she oversees the White House’s efforts on gun violence prevention. In 2020, she called for universal background checks and a ban on “assault weapons.”
Upon winning the 2020 Vice Presidential election, Kamala Harris became the first female, first Indian-American, and first Black Vice President.
Kamala Harris stated that her victory holds significant meaning.
“I may be the first to hold this office,” she said when announcing her and Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, “but I won’t be the last.”
Additionally, Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff became the first Jewish spouse of a Vice President. Their home is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where they have a Mezuzah on their doorframe—a Jewish item they are required to display according to their faith.
Before the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022, most Justices’ opinions were publicly known, leading Kamala Harris to express discontent in a speech, saying, “How dare they?” about the decision.
She has frequently spoken out in support of so-called abortion rights.
In the early days of the Biden administration, Kamala Harris was appointed as the “Border Czar,” tasked with securing border safety.
The government described this role as primarily diplomatic, focusing on addressing the “root causes” of illegal immigration to the U.S.
While facing increasing pressure from Republicans as the immigration crisis worsened, Kamala Harris has only visited the border once during her time as “Border Czar.”
In a related report from the White House, Kamala Harris outlined the government’s policies, including “creating a pathway to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants, modernizing our immigration system, and effectively managing our borders.”
Kamala Harris proposed an initiative to address the immigration crisis by mobilizing major corporations to invest in and create job opportunities in Central America, aiming to tackle the root cause of the influx of illegal immigrants to the U.S.
The initiative chiefly targeted Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, raising over $5 billion since its launch.
Kamala Harris has strongly supported Ukraine in its war against Russia and backed U.S. military aid to Kyiv.
Regarding Israel, while reiterating unwavering U.S. support for Israel and condemning Iran’s attacks on Israel in April, she has been critical of Israel in its conflict with the Hamas terrorist group.
In March, she stated, “The Israeli government must do more to greatly increase assistance to (Gaza). No excuses.”
Kamala Harris celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop music at the Vice Presidential residence, showcasing her fondness for hip-hop music, evident from widely circulated videos of her dancing to music. Even after dropping out of the 2020 campaign, she continued to dance with her campaign team.
During the celebration event, she said, “As the daughter of Oakland, California, hip hop music has been a part of my life since the beginning. I knew every lyric of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ growing up, to high school when my best friend from kindergarten, Stacey Johnson—she’s here, will pick me up in her dad’s black Cadillac DeVille series car and we’d drive down to a club in the city, where there was a DJ playing music, and we would dance until we needed to take our shoes off.”
Following President Biden’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in 2024, urging Americans to choose Kamala Harris.
Biden’s decision marks the first time a sitting president has decided not to seek re-election since Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary in 1968.