After weeks of speculation, rumor, and thinkpieces, the veepstakes have come to a close and Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate. “These aren't normal times,” Biden wrote to his supporters. “I need someone working alongside me who is smart, tough, and ready to lead. Kamala is that person."
You’re likely pretty well acquainted with Harris after living through the primary cycle. (Remember when we thought sitting through 100 debates was annoying? And now we would give up our worldly belongings to spend one night laughing at Tom Steyer’s tie with our friends? What a year!) But we could all use a refresher. Here’s what you need to know about our next veep:
- Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), age 55, grew up in Oakland, CA, as the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. She’s the only Black woman serving in the Senate, and the first Black woman and Asian American woman in American history to be a candidate on a major party ticket. She’s also the first HBCU grad.
- Before her election to the Senate in 2016, Harris served as California’s attorney general, during which time she worked closely with Biden’s late son Beau, when he was Delaware’s attorney general. Before that, she was San Francisco’s district attorney.
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- Harris’s policy priorities largely match Biden’s, though her voting record in the Senate places her to the left of all but one of her fellow Democrats. She memorably criticized Biden’s record on school integration in one of the early primary debates. After suspending her campaign, though, Harris quickly positioned herself as a strong Biden supporter.
- Harris has taken her own share of criticism, particularly from the left wing of the party, for her prosecutorial record: she rarely intervened in cases involving police killings or other officer misconduct, and has faced questions for being too punitive in response to minor crimes. That said, during this summer’s protests she’s called for meaningful police reform, and for a Justice Department investigation into police practices.
- She has a well-earned reputation as a sharp questioner in Senate oversight hearings—which hopefully means we’ll get to watch her make Vice President Mike Pence cry for Mother in their debate on Wednesday, October 7.
Here’s what we don’t know about Harris: Whether her presence on the ticket will help or hurt Biden in the election. It’s probably neither! However you feel about Harris as the vice presidential pick, the biggest news here is that we’ve got our ticket, the horse-race distractions are over, and it’s time to get to work.
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Ben Rhodes’ new pod Missing America premieres today! Ben was Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, and over the past few years he’s been all over the world, speaking to leaders and activists, and getting a sense of what’s happening now that America has stopped trying to lead. The first episode is out now and all about Trumpism and its effects abroad and at home. Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your pods →
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Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has become the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine for use. That vaccine (called Sputnik-V, in an adorable little nod to the Cold War) has yet to go through large-scale clinical trials, where it would be administered to thousands of people. As of now Sputnik-V has only been tested on dozens of people, and Russia hasn’t released any data on its safety or efficacy, but Putin claimed one of his daughters has received it and “feels well,” so who could be worried? Other than, you know, a ton of scientists both in Russia and around the world. The Kremlin pushed researchers to fast-track the development of a vaccine as a matter of national prestige, to boost Russia’s image as a global scientific leader—in other words, for political gain. Remind you of anybody?
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- Five states held their primaries today, on the final day of this eternal presidential primary cycle. In Minnesota, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) fought to keep her seat, and in Georgia, QAnon candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene competed in a GOP primary runoff. (Republicans have done very little to stop her from prevailing, leaving her poised to win a House seat.)
- Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the main opposition candidate in Belarus who challenged Sunday’s election results, has turned up in Lithuania after Belarusian authorities detained her for hours.
- The DNC has announced its lineup of speakers for next week’s convention. AOC does have a speaking slot after all. Andrew Yang, not so much.
- The Trump administration is reportedly considering a (very illegal-sounding) proposal to block U.S. citizens and legal residents from entering the country if they’re suspected of having the coronavirus. Nothing like slamming the barn door after the horse has bolted and met up with some other horses and returned to trample the barn and set the barn splinters on fire.
- The DC Circuit Court of Appeals appears poised to reverse a ruling that would force Judge Emmet Sullivan to immediately dismiss the case against Michael Flynn, even though the Justice Department now says it had a secret reason for wanting to drop the prosecution.
- More than 800 students and staff in a Georgia school district (where masks are optional) have been told to quarantine just a week into the new school year.
- The Big Ten Conference has postponed all fall sports seasons (including football) indefinitely. This, and not that last thing, is what Trump has deemed a “tragic mistake.”
- Kentucky businesses and workers caught in an economic crisis are furious with Mitch McConnell for holding up aid. The least we can do is make sure they know who else to vote for.
- Kanye West’s campaign (which is to say, a bunch of Republicans) has filed an argument that West should be allowed to appear on the Wisconsin ballot even though his nomination signatures were turned in 14 seconds past deadline. Those signatures also included “Mickey Mouse” and “Bernie Sanders,” but go off.
- New Zealand has reinstated coronavirus restrictions in Auckland after new cases of community transmission broke the country’s 102-day streak. We apologize for whatever small part we played in jinxing this yesterday.
- The last remaining Blockbuster is now available for ‘90s-themed stays on Airbnb, provided you are a resident of Deschutes County, OR, the place we live as of today for unrelated reasons.
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Having won a legal fight to send in “poll monitors” without restrictions, the GOP is recruiting a voter intimidation army. In 2018, a federal judge lifted a consent decree requiring the GOP to obtain court approval before engaging in organized poll monitoring activities. (The decree was put in place almost 40 years ago because Republicans sent a bunch of threatening goons to the polls.) Republicans now have leeway to centralize poll watching efforts, which used to fall to individual Republicans and GOP campaigns to organize, and they’ve set out to recruit 50,000 monitors across 15 battleground states. Because as we all know, voter fraud isn’t just a problem with mail-in ballots, it’s rampant at any polling place where people seem likely to vote for Democrats. One more reason to make sure every voter has the information they need to cast their vote safely →
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Some good news about that last item: A coalition of Black civic groups has begun a campaign to make sure Black voters are armed with the information they need to vote by mail, vote early, or dodge GOP thugs at polling sites.
You beautiful phone-banking freaks helped Texas Democrats contact over two million Texas voters last weekend, the most people the state party has ever contacted in a single weekend.
Democratic voter registrations surged in June amid the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
ActBlue processed more than $6 million in donations following Biden’s VP announcement.
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