Kamala Harris

Kamala Devi Harris (pronounced KAM-ə-lə HAR-iss; born October 20, 1964) is an American lawyer and Democratic politician who served as the 49th vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. She is the first female, first African American, and first Asian American vice president, as well as the highest-ranking female and Asian American official in U.S. history. She previously represented California as a U.S. senator from 2017 to 2021, attorney general of the state from 2011 to 2017, and district attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011. (For audio pronunciation by Harris, see this video )

Born in Oakland, California , to Shyamala Gopalan , an Indian-born cancer researcher, and Donald J. Harris , a Jamaican-born economist and Stanford professor, Harris grew up in a household emphasizing academic achievement and civil rights activism. She attended Howard University , earning a bachelor's degree in 1986, and received her Juris Doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1989, later passing the California bar exam. Beginning her legal career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County , she prosecuted cases involving gang violence, domestic abuse, and child sexual assault, achieving a high conviction rate that established her reputation for courtroom effectiveness.

Harris's tenure as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general highlighted a pragmatic prosecutorial style, including initiatives like the "Back on Track" reentry program for nonviolent offenders, which reduced recidivism but drew scrutiny for lacking rigorous independent evaluation. As attorney general, she secured a $20 billion settlement with major banks over foreclosure abuses and prioritized environmental enforcement, yet faced bipartisan criticism: conservatives for declining to defend Proposition 8 and progressives for aggressive truancy prosecutions that led to thousands of parental arrests, later contested in federal court as potentially unconstitutional. In the Senate, she focused on healthcare reform and criminal justice, co-sponsoring bills to reduce cash bail and expand Medicare, while her vice presidency involved casting tie-breaking Senate votes for major spending legislation and diplomatic travel, though public approval ratings remained historically low amid perceptions of limited substantive policy influence. Harris is also the author of three nonfiction books— Smart on Crime (2009, co-authored), The Truths We Hold (2019), and 107 Days (2025), a memoir detailing her 2024 presidential campaign from Joe Biden's withdrawal on July 21, 2024, to Election Day on November 5, 2024, with the title referencing the 107-day length of the campaign—and one children's book, Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019). Her 2025 memoir 107 Days achieved strong commercial success, selling 350,000 copies across all formats (including pre-orders, print, ebooks, and audiobooks) in its first week on sale following its September 23, 2025 release, according to publisher Simon & Schuster. This prompted a fifth printing, bringing hardcover copies in print to 500,000, and positioned the book on track to become the best-selling memoir of 2025. By November 2025, approximately two months after release, Circana/BookScan reported 289,000 copies sold (likely focused on print sales). She sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 but withdrew before primaries concluded, and in 2024 became the nominee following Joe Biden 's late withdrawal, ultimately losing the general election to Republican Donald Trump , who secured 312 electoral votes to her 226.

Kamala Devi Harris (pronounced KAM-ə-lə; Kamala meaning "lotus" and Devi meaning "goddess" in Sanskrit) was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to Shyamala Gopalan , a biologist born in Chennai, India, who immigrated to the United States at age 19 and specialized in breast cancer research, and Donald J.