Kamala Harris not ruling out 2020 run
Indian-origin California senator Kamala Harris has made her most direct comments yet about her political future, refusing to rule out a bid for the US presidency next year.
Born to immigrants from Jamaica and India, 53-year-old Harris is considered one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party. She is often included among potential Democratic presidential hopefuls.
During an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, she was asked about a potential presidential run in 2020, to which she replied she is currently focussed on the upcoming mid-term elections in November.
When she was pressed on whether she was ruling out a presidential bid, Harris said: “I’m not ruling it out, no.”
Harris was California’s attorney general before she was elected to the Senate in 2016. She has also emerged as a defender of immigrants, the target of President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, and this could give her an edge with liberal voters.
Harris opposed the Democratic Party’s leadership earlier this year to vote against an immigration compromise that she said made too many compromises with Republicans, angering colleagues, NBC reported.
She made the remarks after visiting the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, California, which is near the Mexican border. She said she had met mothers who had been detained and separated from their children after crossing the border, with some of the kids as young as five years. “I could see on their faces that they had no idea what was about to happen,” she said.