For years, Kamala Harris faced criticism that she was not qualified for the position, despite being one step away from the presidency. Now, she sees herself as Democrats’ best hope of preventing a return to power by Donald Trump.
Despite setting a new dimension as the first female, Black and South Asian vice president in US history, the 59-year-old Democrat has long struggled with approval ratings as bad as or worse than President Joe Biden.
However, the past 12 months have seen a change in Harris.
With Harris’s endorsement of Biden, who stunned the world by withdrawing his own re-election bid on Sunday, she has suddenly reached the cusp of history.
Harris will hope she has worked hard to secure her party’s full support amid the crisis.
As the aging Biden’s image has faded over the past year, his “vice president” has emerged as a force in the campaign, pushing for abortion rights and reaching out to core voters, including suburban women and Black men.
With his penchant for the F-bomb and his family’s nickname “Momala” going viral, he has finally begun to reach out to voters who previously rarely paid attention.
He has also earned praise in party circles by remaining loyal to the 81-year-old president over the past few weeks even as political vultures hovered over his candidacy.
Now she will likely face Trump — an uphill battle with a candidate who defeated Hillary Clinton in her 2016 bid to become the first female commander in chief.
The fact that Harris attributed much of her criticism by Republicans to racism and sexism makes her victory seem even more justified.
Trump and other Republicans have stepped up their attacks on her as Biden’s position has weakened and polls have shown Harris would do better against him than she would against Biden.
‘Ready to serve’
The child of immigrant parents — her father was from Jamaica and her mother from India — Harris grew up in an activist family in Oakland, California, where she attended her first rallies carrying a stroller.
Her focus on rights and justice helped her build an impressive CV, making her the first black attorney general of California and the first woman of South Asian descent to be elected to the US Senate.
Harris then ran against Biden in the 2020 primaries. In one scathing attack, she criticized Biden for allegedly opposing busing students to segregated schools.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate their public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me,” he said, launching a scathing attack on his future boss.
But as his running mate, she strengthened the coalition that helped defeat incumbent Trump in 2020.
His transfer to the White House proved difficult, however.
Critics say she held a position that had been confusing to many incumbents and in which she found many flaws.
Struggling to carve out a role, Biden tasked her with getting to the root of the illegal immigration problem, but she failed and then became defensive in response to a question during a visit to the Mexican border.
The unusually high number of staff turnover fueled rumors of discontent in the Vice President’s Office.
And Republicans have repeatedly attacked her, saying she is unfit to serve as America’s oldest president, often resorting to stereotypes her supporters label as sexist and racist.
Harris told The Wall Street Journal in February: “I’m ready to serve. There’s no question about it.”
‘Momala’
Things started to change as the 2024 race began.
The Biden campaign has repeatedly deployed her to battleground states to drive home the party’s message on abortion rights, with Harris becoming the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.
Gradually, he started attracting enthusiastic and excited crowds.
However, some have said things that were embarrassing. Earlier this year, she was mocked when she told chat show host Drew Barrymore that her family sometimes calls her “Momala”, and Barrymore replied: “We need to be the country’s Momala.”
But voters now seem to be in its favor.
A clip in which she frequently quotes her mother saying “You think you fell from a coconut tree?” became a meme, and supporters increasingly feel that her time has come.
If Harris is elected, she will break one of the highest barriers for women in the United States — that of holding the nation’s top office.
Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, is also moving on to a new path, moving from the current second gentleman to the country’s former first gentleman.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)