On November 3, 2020, Senator Kamala Devi Harris made history as the first female, Black, and South Asian person to be elected Vice President of the United States. Harris’ running mate, President-elect Joe Biden, narrowly defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Harris is set to replace current Vice President Mike Pence in January 2021, and will be the highest ranking female elected official in the history of the United States.

Harris was born in Oakland California on October, 20th, 1964 to Jamaican and Indian immigrants. Harris completed her undergraduate B.A. from Howard University, and went on to study law at the University of California, Hastings. After earning her law degree, she joined the Alameda County district’s attorney office as a prosecutor for eight years. Shortly thereafter, Harris was hired as managing attorney for San Francisco in 1998. She went on to be elected as San Francisco’s District Attorney, both in 2003 and again in 2007. Harris was then elected state attorney general in 2010 and 2014, and in 2017, she was elected to the U.S senate. Kamala has held many distinctive positions in Committees on Intelligence, Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Committee on Budget, Committee on the Judiciary, Environment and Public Works. 

On January 21, 2019, Harris announced that she was running for President of the United States, but suspended her presidential campaign on December 3, 2019. Former Vice President Joe Biden then selected Kamala Harris as his running mate for the 2020 presidential election. On November 7, five days after the election, Biden and Harris were named as the projected winners of the presidential election. In a victory speech that evening, Harris pointed out the significance of her background in the world of politics, which is largely dominated by white males:

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”