Kamala Harris makes history as first woman to be elected US vice president
Fourteen vice presidents have gone on to hold the Oval Office. Now that Joe Biden has won the election, could Kamala Harris be the next?
The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States is a package deal, and a historic one at that.
His running mate on the Democratic ticket, California Senator Kamala Harris, has just been voted the nation’s first female — and African-American — vice president, leaving her one step away from the top job which has also never been held by a woman.
The Vice President-elect tweeted a video of her congratulatory phone call to Mr Biden after he was named the 46th president.
Wearing sunglasses and dressed in a jogging suit with the Nike logo, Ms Harris was filmed making the phone call.
“We did it. We did it Joe. You’re going to be the next president of the United States,” Ms Harris said before breaking into a hearty laugh.
We did it, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/oCgeylsjB4
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 7, 2020
Ms Harris turned 56 in October and Mr Biden will be 78 in late November.
Inauguration day, marking the start of the four-year presidential term, is on January 20, 2021.
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.@JoeBiden is right: we gotta keep the faith. We're going to win this.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 5, 2020
Historically, 15 vice presidents have gone on to become president. Six were elected, eight moved into the position after the president died and one upon a resignation, being that of Richard Nixon in 1974.
The United States Senate describes the role of vice president as “the least understood, most ridiculed, and most often ignored constitution office in the federal government”.
WHO IS KAMALA HARRIS?
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964.
“My name is pronounced ‘comma-la’, like the punctuation mark,” she wrote in her 2018 memoir The Truths We Hold.
Her immigrant parents, Jamaican-born economics professor Donald Harris and Indian-American breast cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan Harris, divorced when she was a child. Her mother has since passed away.
“My mother understood very well she was raising two black daughters,” Ms Harris wrote.
“She knew that her adopted homeland would see (sister) Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident black women.”
She majored in political science and economics at Howard University – a “Historically Black College or University” – in Washington D.C.
“When you’re at an HBCU, and especially one with the size and with the history of Howard University – and also in the context of also being in D.C., which was known forever as being ‘Chocolate City’ – it just becomes about you understanding that there is a whole world of people who are like you,” she said in a Washington Post article published in September 2019.
“It’s not just about ‘there are a few of us who may find each other’.”
Ms Harris also has a law degree from the University of California and began her career in the Alameda Country District Attorney’s Office.
She went on to become District Attorney of San Francisco, where she had a tough-on-crime approach, then a self-proclaimed “top cop” as Attorney-General of California.
“Over the course of her nearly two terms in office, Kamala won a $25-billion settlement for California homeowners hit by the foreclosure crisis, defended California’s landmark climate change law, protected the Affordable Care Act, helped win marriage equality for all Californians, and prosecuted transnational gangs that trafficked in guns, drugs, and human beings,” her website states.
She is currently a Senator for California.
“I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president on what it means to enforce the laws of our own country,” she said in early October, facing off against Vice President Mike Pence in the vice presidential debate.
“I am the only one on this stage who has personally prosecuted everything from child sexual assault to homicide.”
The remarks arose during a back-and-forth on criminal justice and the police killing of George Floyd.
Ms Harris married lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014 and is stepmother to his two children Cole and Ella, who call her “Momala”, she wrote in Elle for Mother’s Day last year.
“They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults,” she said.
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Ms Harris was among nine presidential hopefuls at the Democratic debate, appearing a top contender against Mr Biden, but dropped out of the race in December 2019.
Mr Biden picked her as his running mate in August this year.
“Kamala, as you all know, is smart, she’s tough, she’s experienced, she’s a proven fighter for the backbone of this country – the middle class – (and) for all of those who are struggling to get into the middle class.
“Kamala knows how to govern. She knows how to make the hard calls.
“She’s ready to do this job on day one.”
Ms Harris is the third woman to be selected as a major party vice presidential candidate, following Geraldine Ferraro as Democrat Walter Mondale’s pick in 1984 and Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket with John McCain in 2008.
Hillary Clinton is the first and only woman to receive a presidential nomination by a major party.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand believes Ms Harris “will be a great role model for woman and girls worldwide”.
Her election as vice president would have “a seismic impact on the trajectory of history, as well as on the aspirations of millions of people,” Ms Gillibrand told The Washington Post.
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WHAT HAPPENS IF JOE BIDEN DIES?
The question of what happens if a president dies most recently arose when Donald Trump contracted COVID-19.
Regardless of who is elected president, if they die the powers are given to the vice president.
But Mr Biden doesn’t plan on going anywhere and has repeatedly defended his own fitness.
MSNBC host Mika Brezinski asked Mr Biden in July 2019 what he would do if Mr Trump raised issues of his age and mental state.
“I’d say, ‘C’mon Donald, c’mon man. How many push-ups do you want to do here, pal?’” Mr Biden replied.
“I mean, jokingly. C’mon, run with me, man.”
More than a year later, Mr Biden was questioned about his age and criticism from Donald Trump when he appeared alongside Ms Harris on ABC’s World News Tonight in August.
“His campaign has called you ‘diminished’. And I’m curious how you’d respond to that,” anchor David Muir asked.
“Watch me, Mr President, watch me,” Mr Biden said.
“Look at us both. Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we’re in.
“C’mon. I think it’s a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old whether or not they’re fit and whether they’re ready.
“But I just, (the) only thing I can say to the American people, it’s a legitimate question to ask anybody. Watch me.”
He also left the possibility of a second term in the White House, if elected, open.
His wife, Jill Biden, told The Philadelphia Inquirer in October her husband is on Zoom calls or travelling “every day”.
“People see him all the time. I don’t think it’s even a question,” she said.
“It just seems so ridiculous to me.”
THE 15 US VICE PRESIDENTS WHO BECAME PRESIDENT
• John Adams (1791-1801)
• Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
• Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
• John Tyler (1841-1845)
• Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
• Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
• Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)
• Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
• Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
• Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
• Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
• Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
• Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)
• George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)
• President-elect Joe Biden
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