Kamala Harris Announces Presidential Run on MLK Holiday

After months of speculation, Sen. Kamala Harris has officially thrown her hat into the 2020 presidential race.

The California Democrat announced her campaign Monday on Good Morning America.

“I am running for president of the United States,” she told Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. “I am very excited about it.”

The former prosecutor said she decided to enter the growing Democratic field out of a sense of responsibility.

“I love my country,” she said. “This is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are.”

Read More: ‘SNL’ Mocks Trump in ‘Deal or No Deal: Government Shutdown Edition’

She continued: “The American people deserve to have somebody who is going to fight for them, who is going to see them, who will hear them, who will care about them, who will be concerned about their experience, and put them in front of self-interests.”

Harris, who made the announcement on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, said she was inspired by the late civil rights leader.

“Today, the day we celebrate Dr. King, is a very special day for all of us as Americans and I’m honored to be able to make my announcement on the day we commemorate him,” she said.

Harris, 54, plans to make equality, decency, justice, and democracy the focus of her campaign, and
will use the slogan “For the people.”

She joins fellow senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in the race.

Harris is a native of Oakland. Her mother immigrated to the United States from India and became a physician. Her Jamaican father was an economics professor at Stanford University.

She is a graduate of Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Before becoming a senator, she served as district attorney of San Francisco, and in 2010 became the first woman elected as California’s attorney general, as well as the first African-American and the first Indian-American to hold the office.

Harris plans to formally launch her campaign on Sunday with a speech in Oakland.