Former Vice President and presumptive nominee Joe Biden has named Kamala Harris as his running mate, making the California senator the first Black and South Asian American woman on a majority party ticket in the country’s 244-year-old history.
Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I'm proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 11, 2020
The announcement has unsurprisingly sparked great enthusiasm, and it is significant and symbolic, not only because it comes in an era of politics marred by racial divisions and the rise of the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, but also because she has a shot at more history-making, in potentially becoming the first female US President. Biden, 77, if elected, is expected to serve only one term, which would make Harris better placed than anyone to win the Democratic presidential nomination four years from now.
Harris responded in her own tweet, calling joining Biden’s ticket an honor. Biden, she wrote, “can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I’m honored to join him as our party’s nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief.”
.@JoeBiden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 11, 2020
I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief.
Biden’s choice, though groundbreaking for women and women of colour, is also in many ways conventional and calculated. Harris, 55, brings a coastal and generational balance to the ticket, they agree on ideology, and having been a presidential candidate herself, she has already been vetted on her stances on important issues, which makes her more appealing in terms of not having any baggage or alienable positions. She has also proven herself as unafraid to be aggressive and blunt in dealing with the opposition, which was made especially clear during then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing. Of all the women who were under consideration for the role then—reports suggest that the list included Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Obama NSA Susan Rice, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and former Georgia state rep. Stacey Abrams—Harris was the only viable running mate to help take Biden across the finish line, especially given her potential ability to garner support from moderates and independents. With her, Biden was also able to fulfill his March pledge to pick a woman for the job.
The idea of Harris as VP is also being seen as a win for Indian-Americans in US politics, given her South Asian heritage. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in Chennai and immigrated to the US to attend a doctoral program at UC Berkeley in California. Though Harris has held conventional views on South Asia—in being a proponent of the US withdrawing from Afghanistan and pushing for stronger US-India relations, she has also been extremely vocal about the situation Kashmir. She also supported fellow Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in December 2019, who was refused a meeting with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar due to a resolution she had introduced in the House on Kashmir. How these positions play out for India-US ties during her term as VP, remains to be seen.
Biden and Harris are expected to appear together for the first time for a speech in Delaware on Wednesday, the details of which are yet to be made public.