Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has chosen Senator Kamala Harris of California to be his vice presidential running mate.
Harris, 55, becomes the first Black woman on a major presidential ticket in US history and provides Biden with a partner well suited to go on the attack against Republican President Donald Trump.
Harris, who made her own run for the White House before ending it and endorsing Biden, is an experienced politician already battle-tested by the rigors of the 2020 presidential campaign as they head into the final stretch of the November 3 election.
The daughter of an Indian-born mother and a Jamaican father, Harris has knocked down barriers throughout her career. She was the first woman to serve as San Francisco’s district attorney, elected to that office in 2003, and the first woman to serve as California’s attorney general, elected to that office in 2010. She became the US Senate’s second Black female member in its history when she was elected in 2016.
Harris is also the first Asian-American on a major presidential ticket.
"I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris – a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants – as my running mate," Biden said on Twitter.
With social unrest over racial injustice and police brutality against Black Americans rocking the country for months, Biden had been under increasing pressure to select a woman of color as his running mate.
Biden's pick of Harris drew ringing endorsements from other quarters – including from Barack Obama, America's first African-American commander in chief.
"She is more than prepared for the job," tweeted Trump's predecessor. "This is a good day for our country. Now let's go win this thing."
Biden and Harris will make their first joint appearance as a presidential ticket on Wednesday in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, the campaign said.
Trump 'surprised'
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called Harris the "most horrible" member of the US Senate and said he was "surprised" Joe Biden had picked her as his vice presidential candidate.
Trump told reporters at the White House that Harris did not impress him when she was vying for the Democratic nomination in primaries eventually won by Biden.
"I was more surprised than anything else because she did so poorly," he said.
He also said that during the bruising 2018 Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Harris was "the meanest, the most horrible, the most disrespectful of anybody in the US Senate".
Trump and his campaign released their first ad targeting Harris immediately after Biden named her as his running mate. The ad calls the pair "Slow Joe and Phony Kamala". It accuses Harris of being part of the "radical left", a taste of what is to come in the months ahead as the Trump campaign tries to paint Biden as veering towards the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
The final stretch
It is hoped that Harris will help drive the African-American vote – the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency. Four years ago, the first dip in Black voter turnout in 20 years contributed to Democrat Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump.
Biden's campaign needs the support of Black voters, who will be crucial in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that Trump won by the slimmest margins in 2016 but where opinion polls now show him trailing his Democratic rival.
The Black vote is also central to Biden's hopes of winning the Southern states of Georgia and Florida that Trump carried four years ago but which opinion polls indicate will be competitive this year.
Harris, a former prosecutor and state attorney general in California, is well known for her sometimes aggressive questioning style in the Senate, notably of Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
As a presidential candidate, she also took Biden to task in a nationally televised debate over his past stances on mandatory busing for students as a means to desegregate schools. Some Biden advisers have told Reuters the attacks made them question whether she would be a trusted working partner because of her political ambitions.
While that exchange failed to boost her White House hopes, the Biden campaign will now look for her to train her prosecutorial fire on Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Harris is scheduled to debate Pence on October 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The age factor
The choice of a running mate has added significance for Biden, who will turn 78 in November and will be the oldest person to become president if he is elected.
Biden's age also has led to broad speculation he will serve only one term, making Harris a potential top contender for the nomination in 2024. Some of his allies were concerned that would make her a bad fit for the No. 2 job and questioned her loyalty.
Biden publicly committed to choosing a woman as his vice presidential running mate in a March debate after discussing the matter with his wife Jill. He had also considered former presidential rivals such as senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.
Harris will be confirmed as Biden's running mate at the Democratic convention that begins on Monday, where Biden will also be formally nominated as the Democrats' choice to challenge Trump.
A prominent voice on race
Harris has become a key ally for Biden at a time when race has been thrust to the forefront of the campaign with the protests that erupted over the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white policeman in Minneapolis.
After Floyd's death, she became a prominent voice in the push for racial justice and police reform, standing with marchers and sparring with Republicans in the US Senate over reform legislation.
Harris at times came under criticism from some in the Black community and from progressive advocates for her record as California attorney general where, they say, she did not do enough to investigate police shootings and too often sided with prosecutors in wrongful conviction cases.
Her defenders say she has always been reform-minded – and point to her record in the Senate, where she has championed a police-reform bill and an anti-lynching bill, among other measures. Harris herself has said she became a prosecutor in order to bring a more progressive approach to the office.
Biden was reportedly considering several women of color in addition to Harris, including former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and US Representative Val Demings, a former police chief in Orlando, Florida. Biden also considered Asian-American Senator Tammy Duckworth and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.
Historically, the vice presidential nominee has been the one to take the lead in criticising the opposing ticket, although Trump has largely shredded that tradition. Brian Brokaw, a California political consultant who managed Harris’s campaigns for attorney general and Senate, said Harris fits that role well.
“She is someone who can really make Republicans quake in their boots," Brokaw said.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)
