Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, to Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, came to the United States from Chennai, India, at age 19 for graduate studies at UC BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry, became a breast cancer scientist and earned her doctorate the year her daughter was born; both parents were active in the civil rights movement. Her sister is Maya Harris.⁠[1][2][3]

She graduated from Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec, received a B.A. from Howard University in 1986 and earned a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1989.⁠[1]

From 1990 to 1998 she was a deputy district attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, prosecuting child sexual assault, homicide and robbery cases. In 1998 she moved to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office as managing attorney of its Career Criminal Unit, handling “three strikes” cases and serial felony offenders; she later headed the San Francisco City Attorney’s Division on Families and Children.⁠[3][2]

From 2004 to 2010 she was District Attorney of San Francisco, the first woman to hold the office in the city’s history and the first African American woman and first South Asian American woman in California to serve as a district attorney. During her tenure her office created an environmental justice unit and a program offering first-time drug offenders a path to a high school degree and employment.⁠[3][2]

On January 3, 2011, at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento, she was sworn in by Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye as the 32nd Attorney General of California, the first woman, first African American and first South Asian American to hold the office. She served until January 2017.⁠[4][3]

As attorney general she secured a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans defrauded by a for-profit education company.⁠[2]

She was sworn in as a U.S. senator from California in 2017 and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where she helped draft bipartisan election security legislation. She resigned from the Senate on January 18, 2021.⁠[2][5]

In the count of the 2020 electoral votes at the joint session of Congress on January 6–7, 2021, she received 306 electoral votes for vice president and Michael R. PenceMike PenceMike Pence (born 1959) is an American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013, as Governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, and as the 48th Vice President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.Open the full entry 232.⁠[6]

On January 20, 2021, at the 59th inaugural ceremonies on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, she was sworn in as vice president alongside President Joseph R. Biden Jr., becoming the first woman, first Black American and first South Asian American to hold the office.⁠[7][2]

As vice president she visited 36 states, made 17 foreign trips to 21 countries and met more than 150 world leaders.⁠[2]

The Senate’s tally as of December 6, 2023, shows that she cast 33 tie-breaking votes on 23 days between February 5, 2021, and December 5, 2023. She cast the deciding vote for the Inflation Reduction Act and presided over the Senate vote confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.⁠[8][2]

She was the Democratic Party’s nominee in the 2024 presidential election. On January 6, 2025, the House and Senate met in joint session with her as presiding officer to count the electoral votes; the session was called to order at 12:56 p.m. and dissolved at 1:36 p.m. The announced result gave Donald J. Trump 312 electoral votes and Harris 226 for president, and JD VanceJD VanceJD Vance (born 1984) is an American politician and author, a Republican who served as a U.S. senator from Ohio and has been the 50th vice president of the United States since 2025.Open the full entry 312 and Tim Walz 226 for vice president.⁠[1][9]

Her vice presidency ended in 2025. On January 20, 2025, at the 60th inaugural ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, JD Vance took office as vice president.⁠[10][7]

In 2014 she married Douglas Emhoff, a lawyer; she is stepmother to his children, Ella and Cole.⁠[1][2]

Her books include Smart on Crime (2009, with Joan O’C. Hamilton), The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019) and Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019).⁠[1]

The White House (2021–2025 administration archive, official biography of Vice President Kamala Harris): Web page: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/The-Official-Biography-for-Vice-President-Kamala-Harris1.pdf (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

California Department of Justice (32nd Attorney General Kamala D. Harris): Web page: https://www.oag.ca.gov/history/32harris (opens in a new window).⁠[3]