In Historic Pick, Joe Biden Taps Kamala Harris To Be His Running Mate

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Sen. Kamala Harris will become the first Black candidate to be nominated for vice president by a major political party.

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Biden and Harris embrace after she endorsed and introduced him at a March 9 campaign rally in Detroit.

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Biden and Harris embrace after she endorsed and introduced him at a March 9 campaign rally in Detroit.

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Ahead of the running mate selection, several Biden allies and donors warned in the press that the debate attack was too personal, and too harsh, for Harris to serve as Biden’s vice president.

The critiques raised cries of sexism — particularly a Politico report saying former Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, a member of Biden’s vice presidential selection committee, was surprised that Harris had no «remorse for the attack.

Many Democrats pointed out that Biden, George H.W. Bush, John Edwards and other men who became running mates of people they had faced in a presidential primary rarely faced questions about whether they had any «remorse for campaign critiques, or whether they were too «ambitious for the No.2 job.

As the Harris criticisms ticked up in the weeks before the pick, Biden’s campaign tried to diffuse them. «Ambitious women make history, change the world, and win. Our campaign is full of ambitious women going all out for Joe Biden, Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, tweeted in late July.

Ahead of Harris’ selection, a group called We Have Her Back — which includes former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and leaders from Planned Parenthood and the National Women’s Law Center — sent a letter to various media outlets demanding fair coverage of the vice presidential candidate.

«Women have been subject to stereotypes and tropes about qualifications, leadership, looks, relationships and experience. Those stereotypes are often amplified and weaponized for Black and Brown women, the letter said, urging the media to resist popular coverage tropes such as «likeability and «electability for candidates who happen to be women — analysis they said is hardly ever applied to male candidates.

A longtime prosecutor

Harris was born in Oakland, Calif., and grew up in Berkeley. She’s the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, and attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

She was a prosecutor in the Alameda County and San Francisco district attorney’s offices before running for San Francisco district attorney in 2003. She went on to win election as California attorney general in 2010.

In 2016, Harris became just the second Black woman in U.S. history to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She was assigned to the Intelligence Committee, which held several nationally televised hearings on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the presidential election, and how President Trump’s campaign and the Department of Justice responded to those efforts.

The longtime prosecutor also sat on the Judiciary Committee, which oversaw the confirmation of two U.S. Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

The high-profile hearings that each committee held quickly helped Harris develop a national reputation as a sharp, aggressive questioner who could unnerve opposing witnesses. She generated headlines and energized progressives across the country with her questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Attorney General William Barr and, most notably, Kavanaugh.

In January 2019, Harris launched a bid for the White House. She was initially seen as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, drawing more than 20,000 people to her kickoff rally in Oakland. But Harris struggled to articulate a clear reason for her candidacy in a crowded field, and her campaign experienced bouts of infighting.

Since returning full time to the Senate, Harris has played a lead role in Senate Democrats’ response to both the coronavirus crisis, and the increased focus on systemic racism and police brutality.

Biden’s pick came amid intense pressure from Democrats not only to pick a woman, which he promised to do in March, but to pick a woman of color. That drumbeat began well before George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police but intensified amid sustained protests across the country.

Harris will be the fourth woman on a major party’s national ticket. All three women to previously run for president and vice president have lost: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in 2008 and Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

The only previous Black candidate on a presidential ticket, Obama, won the White House with Biden at his side in 2008.

NPR’s Barbara Sprunt contributed to this report.