Kamala Harris US vice president and favoured Biden successor

Kamala Harris US vice president and favoured Biden successor 

A look at how Kamala Harris came to be vice president, why she is being touted for the top job and what her reaction has been

Joe Biden has backed his vice president Kamala Harris to take his place as the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidential election.

Questions had been raised over Joe Biden’s fitness for office, and rumours had been circulating that the president's campaign was "quietly assessing" whether Kamala Harris could take over from him.

Now that the president has officially pulled out here's a look at how Ms Harris came to be vice president, why she is being touted for the top job and what her reaction has been.

Before vice presidency

The 59-year-old was born and raised in Oakland, California by Jamaican father Donald Harris and Indian mother Shyamala Gopalan.

Her parents, both immigrants, were highly respected in their fields - her mother as a breast cancer scientist and father an economics professor.

They divorced when she was seven and she was raised with her sister Maya by their mother in Berkeley.

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Ms Harris says the pair took her to civil rights marches while she was "in a stroller," growing her interest in law.

She went on to graduate from Howard University and the University of California Hastings College of Law.

She began her long career in law as a deputy district attorney between 1990 and 1998, specialising in prosecuting child sexual assault cases, but also working on homicide and robbery cases.

In 1998, Ms Harris was named managing attorney of a criminal unit at the San Francisco District Attorney's Office before becoming head of the San Francisco City Attorney's Division on Families and Children.

She became the first female district attorney for San Francisco in 2004. During her first three years in the position, the conviction rate in the city jumped from 52% to 67%.

She served for six years before being elected as attorney general of California, where she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country.

In 2016, she won the US Senate race in California, beating fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez who had 20 years' experience in Congress.

Here, she built a reputation around her work as a prosecutor and gained national attention during her forensic questioning of Trump administration officials including Jeff Sessions, and then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

She had become a prominent politician by the time she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in January 2019, going with the slogan "Kamala Harris for the People".

Democrats saw her as a promising candidate to overthrow Donald Trump's presidency in the 2020 election, but Ms Harris ultimately dropped out of the race in December 2019, blaming a lack of finances.

Joe Biden selected her as his running mate in August 2021, describing her as a "fearless fighter for the little guy".

It made her the first black female running mate for the two major parties, and only the third female running mate for the two major parties in American history.

'We did it, Joe!'

When Ms Harris was sworn into office with Biden she became not only the first woman to serve as vice president, but also the first black person and person of South Asian descent to take on the role and highest-ranking woman ever to serve in the American government.

In a touching moment after it was revealed Mr Biden won the presidential election, she called him while out running.

"We did it," she said. "We did it, Joe! You're going to be the next president of the United States."

In her first speech as vice-president elect, she spoke of the many women who made her achievement possible, personally and historically.

She thanked American voters for turning out in record numbers and vowed to "strive to be a vice president like Joe [Biden] was to President Obama - loyal, honest and prepared, waking up every day thinking of you and your family".

"While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last," she said, in an apparent reference to something her late mother told her.

"My mother would look at me and she'd say, 'Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last,'" Ms Harris said in 2019.

As vice president, Ms Harris has rallied for abortion rights and been heavily focused on tackling the immigration crisis on the US-Mexico border.

Rumours of a late takeover bid

It's been a torrid time for president Biden of late, with the 81-year-old dealing with the aftermath of a disastrous debate against opponent former president Trump in June.

Ms Harris launched a staunch defence of the president mere minutes after the debate ended, admitting he had a "slow start" but saying he "pushed facts" while Donald Trump "pushed lies".