Kamala Harris is making history as the first woman of color projected to become vice president of the United States, shattering barriers that have kept men — almost all of them white — entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for more than two centuries.
The 56-year-old California senator is also the first person of Black and South Asian descent elected to the post.
She represents the multiculturalism that defines America but is largely absent from Washington's power centres. Her Black identity has allowed her to speak in personal terms in a year of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism.
Harris has been a rising star in Democratic politics for the past two decades, serving as San Francisco's district attorney and California's attorney general before becoming a U.S. senator. After Harris ended her own 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, Joe Biden tapped her as his running mate. They will be sworn in as president and vice president on January 20, 2021.
Biden's running mate selection according to pundits added significance because he will be the oldest president ever inaugurated, at 78, and hasn't committed to seeking a second term in 2024.
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