Kamala Harris's path to the U.S. vice presidency

Kamala Harris is the 49th vice president of the United States—and the first woman, first Black person, and first South Asian American to have been elected vice president. Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to parents Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan Harris. The name Kamala means “lotus flower” in Sanskrit. Harris’s career began in 1990 with the role of Oakland’s deputy district attorney. With a reputation for being tough on crime, she quickly rose through the ranks... and in 2010 Harris became the first woman and first Black person to be elected attorney general of California. After a 2012 address at the Democratic National Convention brought her to national attention, Harris was encouraged to run for the U.S. Senate. Her 2016 win made her the first Indian American elected to the Senate. In January 2019 Harris announced she was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Though she was initially seen as a strong contender, she dropped out just under a year later. In August 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden chose Harris as his running mate. She was the first Black woman to appear on a major party’s national ticket—and in November 2020, she became the first woman to be elected vice president of the United States.