Kamala Harris: the possible first woman president of the United States

Black pride, Indian influences

As a child, she attended the Evangelical Baptist Church and the Hindu temple. 'My mother,' she writes in her autobiography The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, 'knew very well that she was raising two black daughters, and she was determined to make sure that we would grow up to be two black women, proud of our origin and confident in ourselves'. As a child, she visited India, where she was greatly influenced by her grandfather, a high-ranking government official who fought for Indian independence, and her grandmother, an activist who travelled the country teaching illiterate women the techniques of birth control.

Studies in law, and then the judiciary

The young Kamala, following her mother's professional moves, attends high school in Montreal, Canada. After graduation, back in the United States, she was admitted to Howard University, a prestigious college for black elites in Washington D.C., where she studied Political Science and Economics. She continued her law studies in San Francisco where she graduated in 1990 and immediately started working as an intern in Oakland, in the Alameda County District Attorney's office. "I will never forget the time when my supervisor was working on a case involving a drug abuse offence. The police had arrested a number of people in the raid, including an innocent bystander: a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he writes in another book, Smart on Crime, where he recounts his life as an investigating magistrate that followed that internship. Young Harris desperately lobbied a judge to review the innocent woman's case on the same day. Thanks to her persistence, she helped get the woman freed and avoided the damage of a weekend in prison. A small victory that for her, as she writes, "was a decisive moment in my career" for never settling for appearances. In the search for justice, which is the ideal pursued by all those who do this job and which remains one of the figures in her political action but also in her career as a prosecutor.

The first black female prosecutor

In 2003 Harris was elected Prosecutor of San Francisco with 56.5% of the vote over her rival candidate: the first time for a black woman. She then rose through the ranks and was elected for two terms as Attorney General in the State of California. California, with 40 million inhabitants, is the richest American state: by the value of its GDP, if it were an independent nation, it would be part of the G7 and would be the sixth world power, right after Germany.

Harris calls himself a 'progressive prosecutor': 'For me, to be a progressive prosecutor is to act on this dichotomy. It is to understand that when one person takes the life of another, or a child is molested or a woman raped, the perpetrators deserve severe consequences. This is an imperative of justice. But it is also to understand that fairness is in short supply in a justice system that should guarantee it. The task of a progressive prosecutor is to seek out the neglected, to speak for those whose voices are not heard, to see and address the causes of crime, not just their consequences, and to shed light on the inequality that leads to injustice. It is recognising that not everyone needs punishment, that what many need, clearly, is help'.

The numbers of his work

During his first years as San Francisco district attorney, the conviction rate in the district rose from 52% in 2003 to 67% in 2006. The highest rate recorded in a decade. With Harris at the helm of the San Francisco DA's office, prosecutions for drug offences increased exponentially, rising to 74% in 2006. The same tough punch when he became State Prosecutor. During the years Harris led the California State's Attorney's Office, the number of people convicted in the Golden State rose by a double-digit percentage.

As California's attorney general in 2014, he blocked the release of non-violent inmates from prison after two protests over overcrowding, appealing that their release would result in a loss of workforce for the many businesses started in prisons.

In 2016, he filed two human trafficking charges against Backpage.com, a website used by sex workers to advertise their activities and facilitate meetings with clients. A campaign against online sex also continued in the Senate where he co-sponsored measures that led to the seizure of the site.

Barack Obama as president in 2013 had called her 'the most beautiful Attorney General of the United States'. He then apologised after the avalanche of criticism of his comment labelled sexist.

From California to the Senate

In 2014 in Los Angeles she married Doug Emhoff, a business lawyer, in a private ceremony officiated by his sister Maya. Emhoff, who is still by her side, now in the White House as second gentleman, has two daughters from a previous marriage of which she became the reference.

A profile halfway between Hillary Clinton and a Beyoncé lent to politics, since her election to the Senate in 2016 - the first Asian American and second African American to enter the Senate - Harris has emerged as one of the new faces of the Democratic Party alongside 30-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although her positions are more shifted to the centre.

The rise in the Trump years

Donald Trump's divisive politics helped his rise. It has always been at the forefront when it comes to denouncing any form of discrimination or violation of the law. Against women, low-income people, people of colour. The latest. During the Trump presidency her anti-establishment tweets have been very frequent and, of course, against the tycoon president, her next opponent in all likelihood. Always at the forefront. With the tweet pointed or the interview ready. From the Russiagate cover-up attempts, to the controversial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. The same happened during the popular protests over the killing by George Floyd that broke out in 140 American cities. Trump had announced that he would deploy the army to restore calm. Kamala responded, sniffing his rising odds for VP in charge, like a true political animal, by attacking: 'These are not the words of a president. These are the words of a dictator'.

Impressed. The president did not speak or tweet anything for a few hours - unusual for him - until retreating the next day, buried in bipartisan criticism, including from the Pentagon, with an about-turn: 'It may not be necessary to deploy the army,' he clarified after a while.

The vice presidency with Biden

The racial protests after Floyd's death favoured the VP nominee with Biden during the last election campaign. The religious leaders of the main African-American Christian churches looked favourably on her candidature and in the end Biden chose her. Harris had been a candidate for the Democratic nomination in that election, but in early December 2019, with the list of Dem candidates still long, she surprisingly decided to drop out of the race, leaving quite a few observers stunned. She had made it clear that she was not dropping out but remained within the party, committed to the biggest challenge of all: making the Democrats win. So it went. The only woman of colour among the party leadership.

The next challenge: the White House

Many observers wonder whether she will be able to stand up to Donald Trump. During the four years of the Biden presidency she - deliberately - never overshadowed her president. Always defiladed. Always a step behind so as not to overshadow the elderly and awkward Commander in Chief. But her story tells of a capable and determined leadership. A symbol of the America of rules and multi-ethnic America. He has determination, preparation, age, elegance and rigour in his side. He could be the hope for an America that does not shut down and looks ahead. Challenges, as her story goes, have never frightened her. "You might be the first, but in the meantime make sure you're not the last," her mother told her... She could be the first woman president of the United States.