Former Vice President Joe Biden (D), the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States, has selected Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) to be his vice presidential running mate. Biden announced the choice in a Twitter posting this afternoon.
Harris served as District Attorney of San Francisco, California, from 2004 to 2011, and then as Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017. In 2017 she was elected to the United States Senate from California, where she serves today. She unsuccessfully sought the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. Harris is mixed-race African American and Indian American, and will be both the first African American woman and the first Indian American woman on a national ticket.
She, like Biden, is generally considered to be a moderate, mainstream Democrat, though this characterization is becoming less meaningful as the party continues to shift further and further to the left with each election cycle. Her background as a ‘tough on crime’ prosecutor has led to criticism from members of the party’s socialist wing, many of whom are currently calling for defunding or even eliminating the police.
Biden and Harris are expected to be formally nominated by the Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention, which will be held August 17-20 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, most of the convention’s activities will occur online rather than in person.