Harris, Kamala Devi

Harris, Kamala Devi käˈmələ dāˈvē [key], 1964–, Vice President of the United States (2021–), b. Oakland, Calif., B.A. Howard Univ., 1986, J.D. Univ. of California, Hastings, 1989. The child of Jamaican-American and Indian-American parents, she won election as district attorney of San Francisco in 2003. After serving two terms (2004–11), she was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and reelected in 2014. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, and in 2019 mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The eventual nominee, Joseph Biden, chose her as his running mate in 2020; she became the first African-American woman and first Indian-American person to be nominated for vice president by a major party. Their subsequent victory over the Republican candidates, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, made Harris the first woman to be elected vice president of the United States.

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