Biden picks Kamala Harris as vice presidential candidate
Sen. Kamala Harris hugs Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden after introducing him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School on March 09, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. Image by Scott Olson/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink August 11, 2020
California senator Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States, the campaign of presidential candidate Joe Biden announced Tuesday.
Harris, who has represented the Golden State since 2017 and served before that as the state’s attorney general and as the district attorney of San Francisco, is the first Black woman, and first Asian-American, to run on a major party’s presidential ticket.
Harris, like Biden, is known for her more centrist views on Middle East foreign policy — supporting military aid to Israel but opposing its proposal to annex portions of the West Bank. She has also spoken twice at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which other Senate colleagues, such as Bernie Sanders, have boycotted. (Full disclosure: I interned for AIPAC for a college semester).
Harris’s husband, attorney Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, and is perhaps best known for frequently posting on social media about how much he loves her.
Harris ran in the Democratic presidential primary against Biden and more than 20 other candidates, but dropped out before the Iowa caucuses. While the two sparred on the debate stage, most memorably in an exchange about bussing, they eventually reconciled and Harris joined Biden for several campaign events after he sewed up the nomination.
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
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink
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