Kamala Harris, the multiracial prosecutor who wants to break the ‘glass ceiling’

The $90 million that Kamala Harris’ campaign will spend on advertising in the coming weeks will serve to introduce a presidential candidate to voters like never before in the history of the United States.

A woman, a former senator, a former California attorney general, biracial, attending a Baptist church and married to a Jewish man, the nation’s first female vice president is the unlikely leader of the Democratic Party. After several groundbreaking developments, Kamala Harris has the opportunity to break the glass ceiling that has, until now, never allowed a woman to occupy the Oval Office.

“She has a strong resume as a prosecutor and a strong resume in the Senate, although she was only in the Senate for a short time,” Portuguese-American political scientist Daniela Melo of Boston University told Luce. “But at this point, he has also been vice president for four years.”

That experience, the expert says, adds to her advantage without bringing with it the baggage that negatively impacted Hillary Clinton, the first woman to try to get into the White House in 2016, bringing with her three decades of politics and a former presidential husband.

Kamala Devi Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who emigrated to the United States, is the first Democratic presidential candidate born in California.

He grew up in Oakland in the 1960s, a tense period of civil rights and desegregation, making his multiracial background – black and Indian – a notable feature of his rise to pioneering positions.

He graduated with a degree in political science and economics from Howard University and then earned a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings School of Law. Her career was aided by a “solid legal background,” as her former colleague at Hastings, Heinz Klug, told Luce when Harris was nominated as Joe Biden’s vice president.

It is her position as a staunch prosecutor that is highlighted in contrast to Donald Trump, who was convicted of forgery and election interference in New York.

Now, after four years as vice president, Harris enters the presidential election with a “solid political record,” said Professor Bryan Adams of California State University, San Diego. “There’s nothing wrong with that, she hasn’t made any mistakes or taken any unpopular positions,” he told Luce.

He particularly distinguished himself in the final two years of his term, taking on the administration’s voice against repealing abortion rights, protecting reproductive rights and combating climate change. She made several important transatlantic trips and held high-level bilateral talks, taking part in the process that led to a prisoner swap with Russia in August.

But her handling of the migrant crisis, as well as the significant increase in asylum seekers at the Mexican border and illegal entry, have made her the target of sharp criticism from Republicans, with Donald Trump calling her a “border queen” and accusing her of letting in “millions of illegals.”

Trump also questioned her race, accusing her of only recently identifying as black, an accusation that was widely criticized as untrue.

Harris attended Howard University, where the student body was predominantly African American, and was inspired by the works of Martin Luther King Jr. and heavily influenced by Christian churches led by black reverends.

The political action group Black Church PAC is organizing movements in support of Kamala Harris’ candidacy, one of whose advisers is the Rev. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.

Her moderate profile has become more progressive over the years, but Harris is considered a centrist because she has been attacked from both sides of the aisle during her career.

She was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003 after leading the prosecution of murder, robbery and sexual assault cases in the county for six years. He created a hate crimes unit and became known for his aggressive stance in prosecuting violent gun and sex crimes.

In 2010, he won the election for California attorney general, and his profile rose sharply, leading prosecutions of human trafficking, drug trafficking and technology crimes.

She was re-elected in 2014 and faced criticism from both sides of the political aisle. Progressives accused her of being too tough on crime, leading to a significant increase in felony convictions (from 52% to 71%) and drug convictions (from 56% to 74%).

Conservatives accused her of weakness, of refusing to impose the death penalty on a gang member who killed police officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004, and of a rise in crime in the state during her administration, when voters approved a referendum to reclassify some felonies as misdemeanors (Proposition 47, on which Harris took no position).

Those contrasts were on display when she ran for president before being named Joe Biden’s vice president in 2020, but in the meantime, Kamala Harris had already stood out in the Senate, where she was elected in 2017.

If she wins, she would become the country’s first female president and the second African-American leader after Barack Obama led the United States from 2009 to 2017.