Joe Biden has chosen California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, the Biden campaign announced Tuesday.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee shared the announcement on Twitter.
“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted at 4:17 p.m. ET.
In a second tweet, he said Harris had been friends with this late son Beau Biden.
“Back when Kamala was attorney general, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign,” Biden added.
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The Harris pick is historic, as she is the first Black and first Asian American candidate to be nominated for vice president by a major political party.
Biden’s decision followed months of secret meetings with potential running mates.
Among the names mentioned on his shortlist in recent weeks were Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), and former national security adviser Susan Rice.
By selecting Harris, 77-year-old Biden showed he was able to set aside differences from the campaign trail. Before she suspended her presidential campaign, Harris made headlines in June 2019, by challenging Biden on the debate stage over his past resistance to desegregated busing.
Harris, 55, 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 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.
If elected, Harris would be the first woman vice president.
