Senator sets her sights on US presidency
A Californian senator who is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants has become the latest Democratic hopeful to enter the race to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency in 2020.
If successful, Kamala Harris, 54, a former prosecutor, would be the first woman as well as the first person of Asian descent to hold the highest office.
She will set herself up as a progressive and inclusive liberal opponent to the president, who is mired in a lengthy dispute about border security and immigration that has shut the government since December 22.
Harris said she chose yesterday’s Martin Luther King Jr bank holiday to set an ‘‘aspirational’’ tone of her campaign. ‘‘[Dr King] was aspirational, like our country is aspirational. We know that we’ve not yet reached those ideals, but our strength is that we fight to reach those ideals,’’ she told the Good Morning America news programme.
Her campaign logo, Kamala Harris for the People, is modelled on that of Shirley Chisholm, the first black person to try to secure the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.
Harris pitched herself as a progressive prosecutor who would use her two decades of experience in law enforcement to protect Americans and fight for equality. As attorney-general of California from 2011 to 2017, she took on banks after the 2008 financial crisis, winning a landmark US$25 billion (NZ$37b) settlement from mortgage lenders.
That bolstered her reputation when she ran for senate in 2016, as did an endorsement from Barack Obama, who was said to have considered her as a possible Supreme Court nominee.
Her husband is Douglas Emhoff, a patent attorney, and she is the stepmother to his adult son and daughter from a previous marriage.
Harris said she would fight ‘‘for ourselves, for our children and for our country’’.
Her mother was a cancer research scientist and her father is an economics professor. Her sister, Maya, is a political analyst for the broadcaster MSNBC.
Like other Democrats keen to look untethered to big business interests, she has promised not to accept corporate money to fund her campaign.
She has been a fierce critic of the Trump administration, and vigorously challenged the nominations of Jeff Sessions, the former US attorney-general, and Brett Kavanaugh, the newest Supreme Court justice, during their confirmation hearings.
Critics contend that her claim as a champion of justice and equality is mixed. A senior aide to Harris was forced to resign last month over sexual harassment claims.
With her entry into the race, Harris joins a rapidly growing list of Democrats who have said they intend to contest an election 20 months away. Five have already declared, and big names such as Joe Biden, the former vice-president, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor, and the senators Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar are all considering running.
Adding to election permutations were reports yesterday that Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks chief executive estimated to be worth US$3.3 billion after turning the coffee chain into a global behemoth, was considering a run as an independent candidate.e–