Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, Black person, and South Asian to serve as U.S. Vice President.
She has served as California’s Attorney General, U.S. Senator and Vice President since 2020.
After concerns were raised about Joe Biden’s fumbles during his campaign, Harris replaced him as Democratic candidate in July and in the months since her campaign has dominated the media.
Her career as a prosecutor has, in some ways, been harmful to her politics due to her harsh punitive record, but when going head to head with Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has been convicted of 34 felony counts, this reputation could be an asset.
A Reuters poll at the end of August showed that Harris’s entry had revived the race, with the Democrats marginally ahead.
Since the summer the gap has narrowed and the election is now a coin-toss contest, with both candidates vying to secure the swing states with relentless campaigning and advertising.
Harris has built her campaign on her reputation as a prosecutor and progressive stance on key issues and has garnered support from several prominent celebrities including Taylor Swift.
British singer CharliXCX posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in July ‘Kamala IS brat’, a nod to her album that prompted the brat summer trend which included women posting pro-Harris memes and videos.
Harris leant into this by updating the KamalaHQ X banner to brat green and mimicking the album font.
Podcaster Alex Cooper also interviewed Harris on her show, ‘Call Her Daddy’, which ranked as Spotify’s second most streamed podcast of 2023 and has a majority female audience.
The interview was heavily focused on women’s issues such as abortion rights, a topic that has been central in Harris’s campaign for the presidency and strikes a chord with many young female voters.
To reach a typically Republican audience, Harris was interviewed by Brett Baier on Fox News, a platform that hosts her most vocal opponents and Donald Trump himself.
In the Fox News interview, Harris attempted to distance herself from Biden’s presidency and reach the stereotypically Republican audience of Fox News.
From the West Coast to Washington DC
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964, just over the bay from San Francisco.
Her parents were Indian-born mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and social activist, and Jamaican-born father Donald Harris, an economist.
Harris has often spoken of her multi-cultural upbringing and of the importance of representation in America.
Harris attended Howard University in Washington DC and studied Political Science and Economics before studying at law school at the University of California.
Her path into politics
Harris has a complex reputation as both a progressive figure and a harsh prosecutor within her legal career.
This duality has shaped her image as Trump’s opponent, casting her as a tough-on-crime prosecutor facing off against a convicted felon.
As District Attorney (DA) for San Francisco, Harris launched her Back on Track initiative in 2005, a programme which facilitated some first-time offenders of non-violent crimes like drug trafficking to gain qualifications and find employment.
This model has since been implemented across the US and reflects her more progressive traits.
However, as DA, Harris was criticised for her stance on school truancy as she backed legislation that threatened prison for parents of absent children with jail time.
Harris won in the 2010 Attorney General (AG) election and became the first woman and the first black American to fulfil this role.
In this role she opposed the ban on same-sex marriage in California, which contributed to the ban being overturned in 2013.
Despite this, Harris has opposed AG investigations into police shootings and appealed against a federal judge’s declaration of the death penalty as unconstitutional in 2014.
Though she was against the death penalty, she had promised voters that she would enforce it.
Throughout her career, Harris has aimed to be progressive and committed to reform, while maintaining a tough-on-crime approach.
Within this, she has promoted a ‘smart on crime’ message, intending to save taxpayer money by keeping non-violent criminals out of jail.
Harris was sworn into the US Senate in 2017 and became the second black female senator and in 2020, after dropping out of the candidacy race herself, Harris was elected as Joe Biden’s Vice President.
As Vice President, she was tasked with the Southern Border and the protection of abortion rights.
She has been a vocal advocate for the right to choose abortion, begun to tackle gun violence, and stimulated growth in Central America to curb immigration at the Southern border.
Featured image credit: Free to use under the creative commons license. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
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