Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s history- making pick for vice president By Melanie MasonStaff Writer Joe Biden has named his onetime rival Kamala Harris as his running mate, the campaign revealed Tuesday, elevating California’s junior senator as the first woman of color to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket. Harris, who centered her unsuccessful White House bid last year on a promise to “prosecute the case” against President Trump, was widely seen as a front-runner to be Biden’s vice presidential pick. With her statewide experience as California attorney general and four years in the U.S. Senate, Harris was among the most conventionally qualified of the half-dozen or so women under consideration in the most diverse crop of contenders ever. “I need someone working alongside me who is smart, tough, and ready to lead. Kamala is that person,” Biden wrote in an email to supporters Tuesday afternoon. The pair are scheduled to appear together for the first time as a presidential ticket in Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday. In many ways, Harris, 55, is a safe pick — broadly popular in the Democratic Party and well acquainted with the rigors of a national campaign. But her selection also carries symbolic heft in this moment when race relations are at top of mind for voters, particularly since Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, had her own highly publicized confrontation with Biden over race during the primary. “Joe Biden can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals,” Harris tweeted. “I’m honored to join him as our party’s nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief.” Despite her strengths, Harris’ selection is not without risk, particularly if the race tightens. She was an inconsistent candidate in her own presidential run, and her record as a prosecutor has at times been a political millstone, particularly as attitudes on law enforcement and mass incarceration have dramatically shifted to the left. While Harris has more forcefully embraced criminal justice reform recently, she faces lingering distrust from some in the party’s progressive faction, including younger voters of color who did not broadly embrace her candidacy. 1/20 California Senator Kamala Harris hugs Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden after she endorsed him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit, Michigan on March 9, 2020. (JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP) 2/20 Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), with former Vice President Joe Biden, speaks in Detroit on July 31, 2019, during the second Democratic primary debate. (Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images) 3/20 Sen. Kamala Harris kick-starts her presidential campaign at a rally in her hometown of Oakland in January 2019. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4/20 A sizable crowd attends the campaign kickoff speech by Sen. Kamala Harris in Oakland. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5/20 From left, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer in Atlanta on Nov. 20, 2019, for the fifth Democratic primary debate. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images) 6/20 Kamala Harris speaks at a protest in Washington over the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh on Oct. 4, 2018. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) 7/20 Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris recognizes a friend in the crowd while saying goodbye to Mayor Robert Garcia after a stop at Portuguese Bend Distilling in Long Beach. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 8/20 Kamala Harris, with Joe Biden, takes part in a reenacted swearing-in at the Capitol on Jan. 3, 2017. Earlier in the day, Biden swore in the newly elected and returning members on the Senate floor. (Kevin Wolf/Associated Press) 9/20 Sen. Kamala Harris shares a moment backstage with her godson before her campaign kickoff speech in Oakland. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10/20 Sen. Harris waits backstage before making her appearance at the Oakland rally. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11/20 Kamala Harris takes the stage at her election night party in downtown L.A. after winning a Senate seat on Nov. 8, 2016. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times) 12/20 Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., center, greets a group of people who were sworn in as citizens after a Citizenship Ceremony onboard the Battleship USS Iowa in Los Angeles, CA on Monday, July 3, 2017. 41 children from 14 different countries are sworn in as U.S. citizens. (Christian K. Lee/ Los Angeles Times) 13/20 From left, Gavin Newsom, then California lieutenant governor and Kamala Harris walk with President Obama in 2012 after Obama’s arrival at San Francisco International Airport. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press) 14/20 Sen. Dianne Feinstein, right, talks with California’s then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Democratic State Party Chairman John Burton in 2011 in Sacramento. (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press) 15/20 Kamala Harris endorses Gavin Newsom for California governor at USC on Feb. 16, 2018. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) 16/20 Then-Gov. Jerry Brown endorses Kamala Harris for the U.S. Senate in May 2016. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press ) 17/20 Kamala Harris, in April 2017, speaks at a downtown L.A. news conference on police bias, alongside former L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell and former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, second from right. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times) 18/20 Kamala Harris receives an honorary degree from USC in May 2015. (Patrick T. Fallon/Los Angeles Times) 19/20 Kamala Harris, second row at left, is seen with her grandparents in an undated photograph. Second row, left to right, is Harris, her grandmother Rajam Gopalan, grandfather P.V. Gopalan and sister Maya Harris. First row, left to right, is Maya’s daughter Meena and Harris’s cousin Sharada Balachandran Orihuela. (Courtesy Sharada Balachandran Orihuela) 20/20 Kamala Harris, sister Maya and mom Shyamala outside their Berkeley apartment in 1970. (Kamala Harris Campaign / Associated Press) While the Trump campaign was quick to paint Harris as an out-of-touch liberal, the president himself appeared a bit subdued in reacting to the pick during a news conference Tuesday evening. He called her his “No. 1 one pick,” but added that he was surprised by her selection because “she did very, very poorly” in her presidential run and she had clashed with Biden during the primary. Advertisement His fiercest criticism centered on Harris’ grilling of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2018, one of several breakout moments she had as a new senator. “She was the meanest, the most horrible, the most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate” during the hearings, Trump said. Vice President Mike Pence, appearing at a campaign event at Mesa, Ariz., welcomed Harris to the race with a hint of sarcasm and boos from the crowd. “As you all know, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have been overtaken by the radical left,” he said. “So given their promises of higher taxes, open borders, socialized medicine, and abortion on demand, it’s no surprise that he chose Sen. Harris.” Advertisement Pence and Harris will meet on the debate stage on Oct. 7 in Salt Lake City. Long considered a rising star in Democratic politics, Harris’ ascent to the presidential ticket has the potential to position her as a future leader of the party, particularly given that, should Biden be elected president, he would be 78 years old when sworn in. Biden, himself a former vice president, said his choice of a running mate would be a “simpatico” governing partner and someone ready to assume the Oval Office on “a moment’s notice.” “It’s overdue. It’s tremendous,” said Angela Rye, a Democratic political strategist and former executive director for the Congressional Black Caucus. “Kamala is not a stranger to making history, so it’s poetic justice that she’d be making history here.” Rye, who had advocated for Biden to pick a Black woman, said the choice could also prove to be politically strategic by shoring up a constituency that is a must-win for Democrats, but often taken for granted. Advertisement “Hopefully it signifies a tremendous shift in the Democratic Party by finally recognizing how important Black people, and most specifically Black women, are to the base,” she said. “We don’t just mobilize the Black community, but we mobilize the party overall.” Despite the weeks of blustery speculation about Biden’s pick, the final decision was announced not by news leaks, but a text message to supporters. The campaign later tweeted a picture of Biden informing Harris via video chat on a laptop — an aptly socially distanced job offer in the era of coronavirus. In making his decision, Biden consulted often with Democratic Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Black power broker whose endorsement turned the tide of the primary season irreversibly in Biden’s favor. Advertisement Clyburn said in a call with reporters he believed that the final three contenders were Harris, national security advisor Susan Rice and Los Angeles Rep. Karen Bass. But Biden was still talking with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as recently as this past weekend, a source familiar with the conversation said. He called Warren early this afternoon to let her know she had not been chosen. Clyburn said he did not make a specific recommendation about whom Biden should pick. He did not believe the potential political liabilities of Harris’ record as a prosecutor should be a factor, he said.