United States presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has chosen Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate for the election in November. Harris is the first woman of colour in the role. Biden had promised to choose a woman for the position.
The 55-year-old senator ran against Biden in the Democratic presidential primaries. She dropped out of the presidential race in December.
She served as California’s attorney general till 2017, when she became a senator. In his announcement, Biden noted that Harris had worked with his son Beau Biden, who was attorney general of Delaware before he died in 2015. “I watched as they [Harris and Beau Biden] took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse,” he tweeted. “I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”
Harris is the first African American as well as Asian American woman to run for vice president at a time when the country has witnessed huge protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
Her parents were Jamaican and Indian immigrants. She is the first South Asian American to become a senator, the first African American woman who was elected the district attorney of San Francisco, and the first Asian American and African American woman attorney general of California.
During the first presidential debate, Harris had attacked Biden about his civil rights record, and especially his fond memories of working with leaders who had supported racial segregation. However, she has supported him openly following that. In June, she had said on a television show, “ Honestly, let me just tell you something: I will do everything in my power, wherever I am, to help Joe Biden win.”
Biden has spent months deciding who his running mate would be, reported AP. Among his options were Senator Elizabeth Warren, Florida Representative Val Demings, California Representative Karen Bass, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
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