- Sen. Kamala Harris is projected to make history by becoming the nation’s first female, Black, and Indian American vice president.
- Democrats and civil-rights advocates celebrated Harris’ historic election, saying her experience and background would positively shape policy and inspire a new generation of women and people of color.
- While some Republicans have celebrated the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy, others, including President Donald Trump, have weaponized her gender and race in bigoted attacks on her.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Sen. Kamala Harris is projected to make history by becoming the nation’s first female, Black, and Asian American vice president.
Democrats and civil-rights advocates celebrated Harris’ historic election on Friday, saying her experience and background would positively shape policy in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration and inspire a younger generation of women and Black and Brown Americans.
“Bringing Black and South Asian representation to the table, her lived experiences as a woman of color and a daughter of immigrants will offer a point of view in the White House the likes of which this country has never seen,” Christian Nunes, the president of the National Organization for Women, told Business Insider.
Neil Makhija, the executive director of the Indian American organization Impact, said Harris’ election would “supercharge the political engagement of the Indian American community” and send a message to “a new generation of young Black and Brown children that they belong, and that in America, anything is possible.”
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"A generation of Indian Americans made this country their home because they knew it meant anything was possible for their children," Makhija told Business Insider. "Today, the daughter of one of those Indian Americans proved their faith."
Christine Pelosi, a Democratic operative and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who attended law school with Harris, told Business Insider that Harris' election "ensures a seat at the table in the Oval Office for communities never before represented there."
The Democratic presidential ticket on Friday morning reached the 270 electoral votes required to win by flipping the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, according to projections by Decision Desk HQ. The Democrats could expand their electoral-vote lead as Georgia and Nevada continue counting ballots in their very close races.
Biden and Harris had won over 4 million more votes than President Donald Trump as of Friday morning, a lead that's likely to grow as states finalize their results in the coming days and weeks.
Harris is no stranger to making history.
Born in Oakland, California, to parents of Jamaican and Indian descent, Harris attended Howard University, the historically Black college in Washington, DC, before becoming the first woman and Black person to serve as San Francisco's district attorney and California's attorney general. In 2016, she became just the second Black woman and first Indian American ever to serve in the US Senate.
Harris established one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate and was particularly outspoken in her opposition to the Trump administration's immigration policies, calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign in 2018 over the administration's family-separation policy. And she leveraged her prosecutorial experience when grilling top Trump administration officials and Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
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As a 2020 presidential candidate, she backed a policy agenda somewhere between moderate incrementalism and bold progressive change. Harris ran on boosting teacher salaries, enacting a middle-class tax credit, and implementing criminal-justice reform. After endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders' call for single-payer healthcare — also known as Medicare for All — Harris shifted her support to Biden's public-option proposal to allow Americans under 65 years old to opt into Medicare.
The Biden campaign, which had not declared victory in the presidential race on Friday morning, has emphasized the historic nature of Harris' candidacy and the significance of her leadership of the country. Harris' husband, the lawyer Doug Emhoff, is set to become the nation's first second gentleman.
Harris has also spoken about the importance of her trailblazing.
"It really does help to have examples of what can be done and role models, things you can point to, to make it clear that it's not impossible — and that, in fact, it's quite probable that you can do these things and will do those things," she recently told the TV host Padma Lakshmi.
The senator is the third woman ever to be nominated by a major party on a presidential ticket. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's vice-presidential pick in 2008, congratulated Harris on the distinction following Harris' nomination in August.
"Congrats to the democrat VP pick," Palin said in an Instagram post. "Climb upon Geraldine Ferraro's and my shoulders, and from the most amazing view in your life consider lessons we learned."
Vice President Mike Pence also briefly congratulated Harris on the "historic nature" of her candidacy during the vice-presidential debate last month.
But Trump and his allies have also lobbed personal attacks at Harris. Trump promoted the false, racist "birther" claim that Harris might not be a natural-born US citizen and therefore is ineligible to be vice president.
The president has repeatedly called Harris "totally unlikable" and a "monster," fueling sexist and racist vitriol against her. Republicans, including the president, have also mocked Harris' first name, intentionally mispronouncing it and even claiming that Harris can't properly pronounce her own name. One Trump campaign advisor last month called Harris "an insufferable lying bitch."
The GOP and its allies in the media have attempted to portray Harris as power-hungry and poised to seize control of the presidency from Biden, whose mental health Republicans have baselessly called into question for months.