Kamala Harris

Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964 in Oakland, California, to Shyamala Gopalan, a breast-cancer researcher from India, and Donald J. Harris, a Stanford economics professor from Jamaica. Her parents met as graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were active in the civil-rights movement. Harris and her younger sister, Maya, spent part of their childhood in Berkeley and later moved with their mother to Montreal after Gopalan took a research post at McGill University. Harris attended Westmount High School before returning to the United States for college. Those years informed her political identity profoundly. Harris earned a political-science and economics degree from Howard University in 1986, then received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1989. After admission to the California bar, she worked in the Alameda County district attorney's office and later became a prosecutor in San Francisco. In 2003, voters elected her San Francisco district attorney; she took office in 2004. She was elected California attorney general in 2010, becoming the first woman, first Black person, and first person of South Asian descent to hold that statewide office. She won reelection in 2014 decisively. In 2016, Harris won election to the United States Senate, succeeding Barbara Boxer and becoming the second Black woman and first South Asian American senator in United States history. She served on the Judiciary, Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Budget committees, where her questioning during hearings drew national attention. In January 2019, she announced a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. She ended it in December 2019. In August 2020, Democratic nominee Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate. Their ticket defeated President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in the November election after a divisive national campaign season. Harris was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 2021, becoming the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American vice president of the United States. As president of the Senate, she cast tie-breaking votes on legislation, including votes associated with the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. In 2021, Biden assigned her work addressing root causes of migration from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. She represented the United States at diplomatic events abroad and became the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 after Biden withdrew from reelection campaign. She lost the election to Donald Trump in 2024.