US presidential Candidate Kamala Harris is the daughter of two immigrants: her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in the south of India. Her father, Donald J. Harris, was born in Jamaica.
As the daughter of parents who brought her to civil rights marches in a stroller, she was inspired to tackle injustice from an early age . She took that mission to county courtrooms, the California Attorney General’s office, the United States Senate, and the White House.
Now she is running for President of the United States to continue protecting our freedoms, delivering justice, and expanding opportunity so that every American can not just get by, but get ahead.
As vice president, she’s been a trusted partner to President Joe Biden in their work to take on the powerful and make change for the people — from standing up against extremists to taking on Big Pharma to bring down prescription drug costs and cap the price of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors.
The Biden-Harris administration has achieved a historic record of accomplishment, including: bringing our economy back from the brink of disaster to create nearly 16 million new jobs; investing over $1 trillion in infrastructure projects like repairing roads and bridges, removing every lead pipe in America, improving public transit, and expanding access to high-speed internet; strengthening the Affordable Care Act and lowering health insurance premiums to save millions of Americans an average of $800 per year; expanding health care for veterans exposed to toxins; enacting the first meaningful gun safety reform in decades and bringing violent crime down to a near 50-year low; passing the largest-ever investment in tackling the climate crisis; and appointing the first Black woman to the United States Supreme Court.
Vice President Harris has proudly represented the United States on the global stage in meetings with over 150 world leaders and bolstered vital alliances against tyranny abroad — and she is just as committed to stopping would-be authoritarians and dictators at home. She is leading the charge to protect fundamental freedoms.
In the U.S. Senate, she led on legislation to raise wages and bring down costs for American families — on housing, health care, child care, college, and more. Serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Select Committee On Intelligence, and Committee On Budget, she fought for critical causes like criminal justice reform, climate action, infrastructure investments, and election security. She also grilled Donald Trump’s nominees, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Cabinet officials, including then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to get answers for the American people.
As California’s attorney general, she went up against the big banks and won — securing $20 billion for middle class homeowners who were facing foreclosure during the Great Recession. She went up against predatory for-profit colleges and won — delivering a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who got scammed. She went up against discrimination and won — leading the team that helped bring down California’s Proposition 8 at the U.S. Supreme Court and fighting for marriage equality nationwide. She prosecuted transnational gangs that exploited women and children and trafficked in guns, drugs, and human beings, and fought to require for-profit insurers to cover contraception and other reproductive health services.
Beginning her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. She later joined the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, and went on to win election to two terms as district attorney — where she started a program, “Back on Track,” to give first-time drug offenders the opportunity to earn high school diplomas and get jobs, that became a national model for decreasing recidivism rates.
Vice President Harris is a proud graduate of Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
In 2013, her best friend set her up on a blind date with Douglas Emhoff. The next year, she married him. Their large blended family includes their children, Ella and Cole, who call her Momala.
Throughout her life, she’s broken barriers, and she’s now the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American to serve as vice president. She always remembers and acts on the words of her mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a renowned breast cancer researcher: "Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last."
