Biden Picks Kamala Harris: Trump Responds, Democrats Unite, Harris’s Net Worth, And More

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Topline

Former Vice President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he is tapping his former Democratic primary opponent Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his vice presidential nominee, ending months of speculation surrounding the first ever female-exclusive VP selection process.

Surprising Fact

Harris’s election as vice president would make her the first African American, or person of color, to serve in the role. She would also be the first woman or Indian-American to serve as either president or vice president.

Key Facts

“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted.

A former career prosecutor, Harris served as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

Harris quickly drew headlines for her tough lines of questioning towards Trump administration nominees and officials, such as her 2017 grilling of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his frequent claims that he couldn’t recall details of his discussions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

Harris launched her campaign in January and was instantly cast as a leading contender for the nomination, but failed to garner broad, lasting support for her bid–including among black voters–particularly sustaining damage for stumbling over her position on Medicare-for-All.

Harris’s most notable moment and largest polling bump of the campaign came when she clashed with Biden at a Democratic primary debate over his record on busing in the 1970s and his “hurtful” anecdotes about rosy relationships with segregationist senators, with Harris accusing him of opposing busing and Biden calling it a “mischaracterization” of his positions and hitting Harris’s record as a prosecutor.

But after dropping out in December and endorsing Biden in March, Harris’s public relationship with Biden rapidly improved, with Harris frequently and effusively headlining fundraising events for Biden and brushing off concerns about their clash over busing.