By Abiola Olawale
US Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted President Joe Biden’s endorsement of her candidacy, positioning her as an early frontrunner for the 2024 Democratic Presidential ticket. The question many are asking is: Can she defeat Donald Trump in the election to become the first female President of the United States?
Biden had announced his decision to forgo re-election, throwing his full support behind Harris.
“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee,” Biden had said.
Following the endorsement, Harris is now on course to become the first Black woman and Asian American to lead a major party ticket
Harris, while accepting the endorsement said: “I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and I intend to earn and win this nomination,” she said in a statement.
According to reports, several Democratic officials and donors have already rallied behind Harris, including the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Democratic Senate candidates including Andy Kim of New Jersey, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
However, despite Biden’s backing, it remains unclear if Harris will become the nominee. This is as the Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement hinting that the party would throw its presidential ticket open.
Harrison added that in the coming days, the party will “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
The New Diplomat reports that Harris, the daughter of Berkeley political activists and immigrants from India and Jamaica, grew up in Oakland and spent much of her political career in California’s Bay Area. After earning her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, she became a deputy district attorney for Alameda County. She later served in the San Francisco district attorney and city attorney offices.
In 2003, she was elected district attorney for San Francisco. Seven years later, she was elected California’s attorney general – the first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to hold the position.
Harris’s record in law enforcement would later become both a boon and a burden to her political campaigns for the Senate and the White House. Among her more controversial policies was a truancy program she reportedly advocated, which allowed parents to be charged with misdemeanours if their children missed too many school days. Harris later said she regretted the “unintended consequences” of the program.
In 2016, Harris won her bid to succeed outgoing California Sen. Barbara Boxer, becoming the second Black woman to ever serve in the US Senate.
As a senator, Harris was known for her strong questioning style during hearings with Trump administration officials and nominees, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Three years later, in January 2019, she entered the Democratic presidential primary. From the start, Harris acknowledged the historic nature of her campaign – she launched her bid on the federal holiday marking Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and held a news conference at Howard University, the historically Black college she graduated from in 1986.
Harris was one of more than a dozen Democrats, including Biden, who sought the 2020 party nomination. One of Biden’s worst debate moments of that cycle came when Harris blasted him over his opposition in the 1970s to court-ordered busing of students to desegregate schools. The dig from Harris, who was close friends with Biden’s son Beau before he died in 2015, came as a surprise to Biden and angered some of his allies.
After she dropped out, Harris became a prominent surrogate for Biden before being named his vice presidential pick in August 2020.
