16 Years After Obama, Is Kamala Harris on the Cusp of History?
By Nafisat Bello
“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”
– Dolly Parton
It is barely a month since Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 Presidential race and Kamala Harris has already accepted her nomination as the Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Is she also on the verge of becoming the first female President of the United States of America and doing an Obama by becoming the second Black person to occupy the Oval Office?
Her entrance into the campaign has revitalised the ruling party, raising a record of $310m (£242m) in July which amounts to double of the figure that was donated to her rival, Donald Trump.
From the very start of her ascent into politics, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown herself to be a pragmatist with core principles along with the political savvy to anticipate traps and learn from her missteps. However, her journey to the top of the ticket has been unique, fraught, and full of difficult questions. But she somehow managed to pull through.
Kamala Harris is a trailblazing American politician and attorney. She has always fought for the people shattered barriers since she began her career as District Attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and later became the Attorney General of California where she used the momentum to propel her successful run for California’s junior US senator seat in 2017.
Born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, Kamala grew up in a family of immigrants. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a Tamil Indian breast cancer researcher, and her father, Donald Harris, was a Jamaican American economist. Thus, Harris’s diverse upbringing and strong family values instilled in her a passion for justice and public service.
In 2004, as the district attorney of Sam Francisco, VP Harris was a national leader in the movement for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first same-sex wedding after Proposition 8 was overturned.
She also established the office’s environmental justice unit and created a ground-breaking program to provide first-time drug offenders with the opportunity to earn a high school degree and find employment, which the U.S. Department of Justice designated as a national model of innovation for law enforcement. And years earlier, in 1990, she joined the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office where she specialised in prosecuting child sexual assault cases.
And in 2010, serving as the attorney general of California, VP Harris oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She took on those who were preying on the American people, winning a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed on a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company. She also defended the Affordable Care Act in court and enforced environmental laws.
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While in 2017, as Senator, she championed legislation to fight hunger, provide rent relief, improve maternal health care, expand access to capital for small businesses, revitalise America’s infrastructure, and combat the climate crisis. She severely questioned two Supreme Court nominees while serving on the Judiciary Committee on their values and what they stood for . She also worked to keep the American people safe from foreign threats and crafted bipartisan legislation to assist in securing American elections while serving on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
By becoming the 49th Vice President of the United States in 2021, Harris made history as the first woman, first Black American, and also the first Asian American to hold the office.
As Vice President, she has worked hard to bring people together to advance opportunity, deliver for families, and protect fundamental freedoms across the country. She has led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, the freedom to live safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote, and the freedom to drink clean water and breathe clean air.
While making history at home, she is also representing the nation abroad, embarking on more than a dozen foreign trips, traveling to more than 19 countries, and meeting with more than 150 world leaders to strengthen critical global alliances.
Also, working alongside with President Joe Biden, they have both delivered monumental achievements that are lifechanging for millions of Americans. They both invested in the economy to create a record number of jobs and keep unemployment low. Their work has led to more small business creation in a two-year period than any previous administration.
Together, they capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors, cut prescription prices, and improved maternal health by expanding postpartum care through Medicaid. They passed the first meaningful gun safety law in three decades. Forming a bipartisan coalition, they enacted a $1 trillion investment in the country’s infrastructure to remove every lead pipe in America and make the most significant investment in public transit, repairing bridges, and high-speed Internet in history.
Since her emergence as the Presidential frontrunner in the ruling party, she has brought energy, enthusiasm and joy to the campaign. Even while President Joe Biden seem to have performed better than his predecessor, Trump, the latter was said to be leading the race due to the seeming physical and mental incapacity the former. He was therefore advised to step down from the race and yield the floor to Harris who has in few weeks caused a breath of fresh air on the entire race.
Her entry into the race has caused massive headache for the GOP as according to the latest poll numbers, Harris and Trump are now neck-neck in most of the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia etc, contrary to the previous situation when Biden was losing out to Trump.
Harris’ credibility rating and electability have quadrupled in the last few weeks and now that she has accepted her nomination, she will only become more and more popular and will likely take a step further in shattering the biggest glass ceiling in the country.
The November 4 election is far from done and dusted and none of the candidates can say he or she is sure of victory at the moment. But what Harris has done to all young ladies aspiring to greatness across the world is to enter the race, give us a contest and raise our hope of having the first female President in the history of United States come January 20, 2025.