Sitting with her great-niece on her lap just hours after the US election, Kamala Harris told the four-year-old that one day she could become President.
However, if her great aunt continues her meteoric rise in US politics, little Amara Ajagu will be unable to create history as America’s first black female leader.
Today Joe Biden was declared President-elect following a 33-year wait from when he entered his first White House race.
It means Harris will become the most powerful women ever in the States as his Vice-President.
And some feel she could one day step into Biden’s shoes and become America’s Commander in Chief – with her husband, Douglas Emhoff, the country’s first First Gentleman.
“Kamala has sent out the strongest message yet that one day we will have equality in the White House,” women’s rights activist Candice Worthington told the Sunday People.
“Fourteen previous Vice-Presidents have gone on to become President.
“But make no mistake, Kamala is not there because of her sex, she is there because of who she is and what she stands for.
“If not before, 2024 should be the year the world finally has a woman as the leader of the free world.”
Many see Harris’s vice-presidency as a prolonged job interview which will ultimately propel her into the Oval Office.
Some believe that could happen before the next election.
Biden’s age and concerns over his mental health have raised the prospect she could take over from the President if he is unable to continue in office for his full four- year term. With a Jamaican father and Indian mother, the 56-year-old will become the first Black-Asian American and first woman to serve as the nation’s Vice-President.
And for the first time since Ronald Reagan – and the first time ever for the Democrats – a Californian is on a major party presidential ticket.
She will provide the liberal west, including Silicon Valley, with a voice in office the like of which has not been seen before.
Harris’s rise to prominence in the Senate came as an adversary to Donald Trump, with her progressive left-wing ideas.
Her background means she can also speak personally to the racial injustices that have surged to the forefront of the US’s consciousness in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
Harris is broadly aligned with the rest of her party in supporting police reforms but rather than openly call for defunding of law enforcement departments, as many Democrats have, she has spoken of “reimagining how we do public safety in America”.
Harris has described herself as a “progressive prosecutor” and “top cop” in her previous roles in California, where she served as Attorney General.
She has supported highly contentious taxpayer-funded abortions, arguing they would save the lives of lower-income women, while also proposing giving all workers six months of paid family leave for personal or medical issues – including those related to domestic violence.
They are values her family, including her nieces, know well.
And millions of American women will hope to benefit from them in the next four years.
