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Kamala Harris: America's first female president?

The former senator and attorney general is already the first woman and first African American to serve as vice president. Now that Joe Biden has withdrawn, will she be on the ballot?

After Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy this weekend, his vice president, Kamala Harris, has suddenly emerged as a leading candidate.
Laura Salafia
After Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy this weekend, his vice president, Kamala Harris, has suddenly emerged as a leading candidate.

Kamala Harris: America's first female president?

Con Coughlin
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After US President Joe Biden bowed to the inevitable and withdrew from the November 2024 US presidential campaign, there is mounting speculation that Vice President Kamala Harris could be the Democrats' new pick.

Often regarded as a divisive figure in US politics, Harris has seen a significant improvement in her poll numbers, which has been attributed to her more assertive and assured performances during public appearances.

In recent months, for example, Harris has been busy crisscrossing the country, speaking on a variety of subjects ranging from reproductive rights to economic opportunity and inclusion. She has also made it clear that she regards November’s election as one of the most important contests in recent American history.

In an upbeat appearance in New Orleans at the weekend, in what was described as an ‘on stage conversation’, Harris described the election as more important than “any in your lifetime”, adding that democracy may not survive if former US President Donald Trump were to succeed in serving a second term.

Previously, Harris has attracted criticism because of her rhetorical blunders and indifferent public profile, so the recent rise in her popularity certainly could not be more timely, after Biden stood down over the weekend.

It comes after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and four Congressmen were reportedly forthright with Biden regarding his chances of beating Trump and what they wanted him to do.

It followed a disastrous performance during the CNN debate with Trump, followed by more mistakes and mix-ups during a televised interview and a NATO Summit press conference.

Lacklustre start

Harris, 59, a former US senator and California attorney general, would be the first woman president of the United States if she becomes the party's nominee and prevails in the November election. She has already become the first African American person to serve as vice president.

To date, her performance as vice president has attracted mixed reviews. After a lacklustre start, she has been criticised for her failure to produce major policy successes, and her leadership skills have been questioned over her high staff turnover.

Recent polls, though, have suggested an improvement in Harris’s approval ratings to the extent that it is now predicted she would do better than Biden in the contest to defeat Trump, the Republican candidate. A CNN poll released on 2 July found Trump is now six points ahead of Biden, recording 49% to Biden’s 43%. While the poll also showed that, overall, Harris trailed Trump by two points, it found independents backed Harris 43%-40% over Trump, with moderate voters of both parties preferring her 51%-39%.

Her growing popularity was also reflected in another Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the Trump/Biden debate, with only one point separating Harris and Trump. Only former first lady Michelle Obama, who has never expressed any interest in joining the race, has polled higher among possible alternatives to Biden.

Influential Democrats, including US Representative Jim Clyburn, who was key to Biden's 2020 win, Gregory Meeks, a New York congressman and senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, have signalled that Harris would be the best option to lead the ticket if Biden chooses to step aside. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has also privately signalled the same.

It is also revealing that two Republican donors have told Reuters they would prefer for Trump to face Biden than Harris, as she represents more of a threat.

Background and career

Born to an Indian mother and Jamaican father in 1964, Harris had a challenging childhood after her parents divorced when she was seven. Her mother raised her and her sister, Maya, on the top floor of a yellow duplex in Berkeley.

After high school, Harris attended Howard University, a prestigious historically Black college in Washington, D.C., where she majored in political science and economics. In 1990, after passing the bar, Harris joined the Alameda County prosecutor’s office in Oakland as an assistant district attorney focusing on sex crimes.

In 1994, Harris began dating Willie Brown—a prominent figure in California politics who was then the state assembly speaker and was 30 years older than Harris. It was through Brown’s influence that Harris was appointed to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission. After Brown was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1995, Harris ended their affair, concluding “there was no permanency in our relationship.”

In November 2020, she became the first Black woman to be elected vice president of the United States.

After being recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's office by a former colleague in Alameda, Harris made a reputation for her controversial approach to dealing with teenage prostitution in the city, encouraging law enforcement officials to focus on the girls as victims rather than as criminals selling sex.

Her first three years as district attorney were judged a success, with San Francisco's conviction rate jumping from 52 to 67%.

It was during this time that Harris acquired many wealthy and influential acquaintances who would go on to provide the financial backing necessary to fund her first campaign for office.

She became district attorney in 2004, and in 2010, she was narrowly elected attorney general of California, winning by a margin of less than 1% and becoming the first female and the first African American to hold the post.

In 2014, she married Doug Emhoff, a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles, at a private ceremony officiated by her sister. Emhoff has two children from his previous marriage, who call Harris 'Momala.'

In early 2015, Harris declared her candidacy for the Senate and, on the campaign trail, called for immigration and criminal justice reforms, increases to the minimum wage, and protection of women's reproductive rights.

She easily won the 2016 election. When she took office in January 2017, Harris became the first Indian American in the Senate and just the second Black woman. She was appointed to serve on both the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Judiciary Committee.

ALEX WONG/ AFP
US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks, and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) listens as US Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1, 2019, in Washington, DC.

Harris's growing stature in Democratic politics led her eventually to seek the party's presidential nomination in 2020, initially making headway after generating attention by attacking Biden, another candidate in the race, over his opposition to school busing in the 1970s and 80s, among other race-related topics.

Although Harris's support initially increased, by September 2019, her campaign was in trouble and in December, she dropped out of the race.

Her fortunes revived, though, after racial injustice in the US became a major issue over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American, who died as a result of mistreatment by a white policeman in Minneapolis in May 2020.

This resulted in Biden, who by then had become the party's leading nominee for the ticket, coming under pressure to select an African American woman—a demographic that was seen as vital to his election chances—as his vice presidential running mate.

Historic milestone

Responding to the pressure, Biden chose Harris, and she became the first Black woman to appear on a major party's national ticket. In November 2020 she became the first Black woman to be elected vice president of the United States.

With Biden coming under pressure not to seek re-election in November, Harris has suddenly emerged as a plausible candidate.

Now that Biden has withdrawn, Harris has suddenly emerged as a leading candidate, one who could do a better job at defeating Trump than Biden.

Biden has already endorsed Harris. Since sheis already on the ticket as Biden's running mate for Vice President 2024, she could access Biden's campaign cash fund, which would spare Democrats the complex process of transferring the funds to another candidate.

Whether she ends up running for president in November is yet to be seen. Only in recent days was he insisting that he was "not going anywhere," challenging his opponents to "run against me".

The party's forthcoming convention in Chicago now offers the prospect of Harris becoming the first woman of African American descent to run for president. For analysts and commentators, this offers an interesting opportunity. Whether the American people are as interested remains to be seen.

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