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A female version of Obama, a daughter of India... A 70-second look back at Harris' political career

According to CCTV News, on July 21 local time, US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election. After announcing his withdrawal, Biden said he would fully support and recognize US Vice President Kamala Harris' nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Harris, 59, has worked as a lawyer and district prosecutor, and has served as California Attorney General and California Senator. In November 2020, when Biden won the US election and was about to enter the White House, his running mate Harris also reached the peak of her career. Harris' victory is an important milestone in American history. She created many firsts - the first woman, the first black person, and the first South Asian American to serve as Vice President of the United States. In this regard, some media have commented that Harris is undoubtedly another example of the realization of the "American Dream". She has been breaking the "glass ceiling" of American society throughout her life.

File photo of US Vice President Harris (Source: CCTV News)

Second-class citizens in white schools

Harris was born in California in October 1964. Her father is an African immigrant from Jamaica and her mother is a Tamil from southern India. After her parents divorced, Harris and her mother depended on each other and had a very close relationship.

Harris visited her family in India almost every year during her childhood. Her grandparents lived in Besant Nagar, an upscale seaside community in Chennai, India. When in Chennai, Harris would always walk on the beach with her grandfather, who was also accompanied by his friends.

In 1969, when 5-year-old Harris rode the bus to her first day of kindergarten, she was in the middle of a heated national debate: whether black and white people could go to school together. Harris' family lived in the western part of the northern California city of Berkeley, a predominantly black area. The bus took her across town to a nearby school in a more affluent white community. Fifty years later, she told her story to her then-Democratic presidential primary opponent, Biden. "There was a little girl in California who was a second-class black citizen integrated into the white public school," she told her future running mate. "She rode the bus to school every day. That little girl was me."

Competed with Biden for the presidential nomination

In 1989, Harris graduated from the University of California with a Juris Doctor degree and was admitted to the California Bar in June 1990. Since then, he has steadily risen through the ranks of the California judicial system.

In 2004, Harris served as the San Francisco District Attorney. In 2010, she was promoted to California Attorney General and was re-elected in 2014. In addition, she created the "Open Justice" database, which provides criminal justice data to the public in an accessible format. In 2016, Harris was elected to the California State Senator, becoming the second African American female senator in the United States Senate.

Harris' ambitions didn't stop there, she set her sights on the highest office in the U.S. In January 2019, she stood on the steps of Oakland City Hall and officially announced her candidacy for president in the place where she began her career.

During Harris' campaign, her husband, Douglas Emhoff, who is also a lawyer, took a long leave from his law firm and stayed by her side. Emhoff holds a doctorate in law from the University of Southern California and is a well-known entertainment industry litigation lawyer in the United States.

In December 2019, Harris announced her withdrawal from the 2020 presidential election. In August 2020, Biden, who had already secured the Democratic presidential nomination, nominated Harris as his presidential running mate. In January 2021, Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States. Reports pointed out that Harris's election broke the ceiling for women in American politics, and she also became the highest-ranking woman in public office in American history.

Screenshot of Harris' swearing-in video (Source: Overseas Network)

How far are you from becoming the President of the United States?

On July 21 local time, after Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race and expressed his support for Vice President Harris's campaign, Harris issued a statement saying that she was "honored" to have Biden's support and would do her best to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

In response to Biden's decision to end his campaign, Harris praised Biden's "selfless and patriotic act" in a statement. She also thanked Biden for his "extraordinary leadership" during his tenure.

In addition, Harris vowed in the statement to "do everything she can to unite the Democratic Party and the country to defeat Trump."

According to CCTV News, on the 21st, people familiar with the matter said that after Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic Party chairmen from all 50 states held a conference call, and all parties expressed their full support for Harris to become the Democratic presidential candidate.

The report mentioned that the Democratic National Committee submitted an amendment on the 21st to change the name of its joint fundraising committee and renamed it the "Harris Victory Fund" and the "Harris Action Fund." According to reports, these two funds simply changed "Biden" to "Harris" and inherited the previous cash. The "Harris Victory Fund" has nearly $40 million in cash, while the "Harris Action Fund" has $23 million in cash.

However, Biden's endorsement does not mean that Harris has easily stepped onto the stage of this election. With only 107 days left before the US election, Harris still needs to choose a running mate, win support within the party, and be formally nominated before she can step onto the stage of the showdown with Trump.

It is understood that the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago on August 19, and the Democratic Party is expected to start the nomination process in early August. Before that, if someone in the Democratic Party stands up to openly challenge Harris, it may put Harris's nomination path at risk.

Jimu News integrates CCTV News Client, China News Network, Global Times, Huanqiu.com, The Paper, China Youth Network, Wenhui Daily, Cailianshe, Xinhua News Agency

(Source: Jimu News)