Democrats are coalescing around Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee for President. Here’s everything you need to know about the potential first female President of the USA.
What is Kamala Harris family background?
Harris was born in Oakland, Calif., to Shyamala Gopalan, originally from southern India, and Donald Harris, who is from Jamaica, making Harris the first vice president of Black or South Asian descent. Both her parents are graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, and divorced when Harris and her younger sister, Maya, were children.
Gapalan worked as a breast cancer research scientist, and Donald Harris was an economics professor at Stanford University. Harris’ mother died in 2009 at the age of 71; her father is 85. Emhoff and Harris married in 2014, and Harris became stepmother to his two children from a previous marriage: Cole Emhoff, 30, and Ella Emhoff, 25.
How rich is Harris?
We estimate Harris and Emhoff, a successful Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer, are worth about $8 million. The couple’s net worth is largely made up of the money Emhoff earned as a lawyer (more than $1 million a year), sales from books Harris published before taking office and their real estate assets, including a multi-million dollar home in Los Angeles.
How has Trump criticised Harris so far?
Trump told a crowd at his rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy . . . she’s nuts.”
The pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., released an ad shortly after Biden’s announcement accusing Harris of helping hide Biden’s “mental decline.” “Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it,” the ad alleged. The ad is part of a $5 million/week TV commercial campaign in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, the super PAC tweeted.
How does Harris poll against Trump?
Similar to Biden, who narrowly trailed Trump in most polls. Trump led Harris by three points and Biden by five in a July 16-18 CBS/YouGov poll of likely voters.
An Economist/YouGov July 13-16 poll found Biden would lose to Trump by two points, and Harris would lose by five, while a July 16 Reuters/Ipsos poll found Harris and Biden were both tied with Trump.
Recent polls have closed that gap.
What is her record as a Senator?
In 2016, she became the second Black woman in history to be elected to the Senate. Harris played a high-profile role on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
She co-sponsored legislation to expand abortion rights, introduced a bill that would have provided a tax credit to middle- and low-income families and co-sponsored legislation in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd that would have made it easier to prosecute police officers accused of misconduct.
What is her record as a Prosecutor?
Harris served as San Francisco district attorney from 2004-2010 and as California attorney general from 2011-2017. In her 2009 book “Smart On Crime,” Harris endorsed diversion programs for first-time offenders but also called for more police on the streets.
Progressives have accused her of not doing enough to investigate police misconduct and have pointed to the nearly 2,000 convictions for marijuana-related offenses that she oversaw during her time as attorney general. Harris’ views on criminal justice have evolved, however. She backed drug decriminalization legislation during her time in the Senate and she declared “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed” when Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of federal marijuana possession in 2022.
What happened in her 2020 campaign for President?
Harris ran for the Democratic nomination but dropped out before the primaries began, citing a lack of fundraising. She was briefly viewed as a top contender in the race, but she faced a series of setbacks, including low polling numbers, criticism from progressives about her record as a prosecutor and reports of operational problems within her campaign.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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