Joe Biden has chosen Kamala Harris, the prominent senator from California whose political career has included many barrier-breaking moments, as his running mate, his campaign announced on Tuesday.
The decision comes more than a year after Harris, who was also a 2020 Democratic candidate, clashed with Biden over racial issues during the first primary debate. If elected, she would be the nation’s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president.
Picking Harris, who is 55, provides the ticket with some generational diversity. Biden, 77, would be the oldest president-elect in U.S. history.
The announcement from Biden caps weeks of speculation and is Biden’s biggest decision to date as the presumptive Democratic nominee — a detail Biden himself noted in his announcement.
"You make a lot of important decisions as president. But the first one is who you select to be your Vice President. I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021," Biden wrote in an email from his campaign to supporters.
Harris, the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate, was elected in 2016 after serving as California’s attorney general and, before that, San Francisco district attorney. A native of Oakland, California, and the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, Harris has said she was inspired to attend law school after joining civil rights protests with her parents.
"She’s been a fighter and a principled leader and I know because I’ve seen her up close and I’ve seen her in the trenches," Biden said of Harris at a virtual fundraiser in June.
As attorney general, Harris worked closely with Biden’s late son, Beau Biden, when he was Delaware's attorney general, particularly in challenging big banks in the wake of the housing crisis. In her book, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," Harris says the pair "talked every day, sometimes multiple times a day."
Kamala Harris: AG Barr has ‘been an aider, abettor to the most corrupt president we’ve ever had’
Because of their friendship, Harris' attack on Biden during the first Democratic primary debate— for his record on busing and working with segregationists— came as a shock to the Biden campaign, his family and the candidate himself.
"I was prepared for them to come after me, but I wasn't prepared for the person coming at me the way she came at me. She knew Beau, she knows me," Biden said in an interview later that summer. He said Harris had "mischaracterized" his position.
The surprise and backlash of that debate moment in Miami was still top of mind for Biden's wife, Jill, as recently as March. Jill Biden said in a virtual fundraiser, "Our son Beau spoke so highly of her and, you know, and how great she was. And not that she isn't. I'm not saying that. But it was just like a punch to the gut. It was a little unexpected."
Both Biden and Harris allies have acknowledged that, in the months after she left the race, Harris has given her full support to the Biden campaign. She has often campaigned virtually for Biden, holding joint fundraisers with the candidate and roundtables around issues like the racial disparities in coronavirus cases and protecting the Affordable Care Act. In a June virtual fundraiser, she raised $3.5 million for the campaign.
Harris was praised for her pointed questioning of Attorney General Bill Barr and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during their respective confirmation hearings, highlighting her record as a prosecutor.
But her record as a prosecutor, especially on issues like marijuana convictions and truancy, has also been a source of criticism, especially from younger, more progressive voters.
Harris has faced pushback in recent weeks from some Biden allies who said the former presidential candidate is too ambitious— criticism that many were quick to point out was sexist.
"Our campaign is full of ambitious women going all out for Joe Biden," Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a tweet. "Whoever he chooses from the very qualified options to help him win & unite the country, she'll be one too."
Harris responded during a virtual conference with Black Girls Rock earlier this month.
"There will be resistance to your ambition," she said. "There will be people who say to you, you are out of your lane. But don’t let that burden you."
Harris ended her presidential bid in December, dogged by fundraising problems and reports of power struggles in the top leadership of her campaign.
Throughout the pandemic, Harris has been living in her Washington apartment with her husband, Douglass Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer. She attended Howard University for her undergraduate degree and was a Capitol Hill intern in the very same office she occupies today.