Joe Biden, former Vice President and current Democratic Party nominee for the US presidential election in November, has chosen Senator Kamala Harris of California as his vice-presidential running mate, making her the first black woman and first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for national office by a major party.
Harris, who was critical of Biden in the Democratic primaries but became a vocal supporter in the end, is a prominent advocate of racial-justice legislation.
Apart from being the first black woman to be nominated for national office by a major party, Harris, 55, is only the fourth woman in United States history to be chosen for one of the major party’s presidential tickets.
The New York Times said last night that she ‘brings to the race a far more vigorous campaign style than Mr. Biden’s, including a gift for capturing moments of raw political electricity on the debate stage and elsewhere, and a personal identity and family story that many find inspiring’.
Biden announced his choice in a text message to supporters: ‘Joe Biden here. Big news: I’ve chosen Kamala Harris as my running mate. Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump.’
Biden had committed to picking a woman as his running mate, and the speculation was that he was under increasing pressure from his party’s radical, identitarian wing, to pick a black person.
The selection is only the third time that one of the US’s major parties has nominated a woman for vice president. In 1984, Democrat Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate, and in 2008 John McCain of the Republican Party selected Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate. Both women were part of losing tickets, with Mondale losing to Ronald Reagan and McCain to Barack Obama. Biden was Obama’s running mate and served under him for two terms between 2009 and 2017.
In recent days, analysts pegged Harris as one of two frontrunners for the vice-presidential nomination, the other being Susan Rice, a former ambassador to the United Nations and national security advisor to Obama, Biden’s old boss.
Biden is set to be formally nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate at its convention later this month.
Polls in the US still have Biden as the frontrunner over incumbent Donald Trump, although the gap Biden enjoyed is narrowing, as questions have been raised over his mental state and fitness to hold office. Similar questions have also been asked over Trump, with Americans facing a choice between two flawed candidates in November, both of whose best days are behind them.
[Picture: Lorie Shaull, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79610237]