Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris (full name Kamala Devi Harris; born October 20, 1964) is an American Democratic politician and attorney who served as the 49th vice president of the United States, a U.S. senator from California and attorney general of California. She was the first woman to serve as U.S. vice president, and the first vice president of African American and Asian American descent.

Born in Oakland, California, she graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office before moving to San Francisco, where she was elected district attorney in 2003. She was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. In 2016 she won a seat in the U.S. Senate, becoming the second Black woman and the first South Asian American to serve as a senator, and gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials at Senate hearings, including the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.

She sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination but withdrew before the primaries began. That August, Joe Biden picked her as his running mate, and in November their ticket defeated incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Presiding over an evenly divided Senate as vice president, she cast more tie-breaking votes than anyone else in U.S. history.

After Biden withdrew from the race in 2024, she became the Democratic presidential nominee and chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, but lost the general election to Trump.