Kamala Harris

The Asphalt of Oakland

Oakland, 1964. Kamala Devi Harris was born into a family of civil rights activism, shaped by the heritage of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father (both immigrants and academics). Her early years in Berkeley set the course of a career that seeks a balance between the law and the street. She studied at Howard University and later at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

In 1990, she joined the Alameda County District Attorney's Office to work on child sexual abuse cases.

And that's where the machine got started.

The District Attorney's Office as a Stage

In 2003, she won the election for district attorney of San Francisco. It was an aggressive campaign in which she had to distance herself from her former mentor to forge her own style. Her approach centered on reinventing criminal justice through programs such as Back on Track, which offered alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders.

But her real breakthrough into the political front lines came in 2010.

She won the California attorney general seat by a razor-thin margin after a recount that dragged on for weeks. She managed one of the largest mortgage crises in U.S. history and negotiated a 25,000-million-dollar settlement with the major banks. Harris has always preferred the rigor of the courtroom to empty rhetoric.

She published her book Smart on Crime in 2009 to lay out her vision for public safety and the efficiency of the justice system.

The Climb to Capitol Hill

In 2016, she joined the United States Senate. Her questioning in the Judiciary Committee went viral for its technical precision with members of Donald Trump's cabinet. She applied her courtroom experience to corner witnesses in televised hearings that captured the attention of the entire country.

She sought the presidential nomination in 2019 but withdrew before the Iowa primaries due to a lack of funding and poll support.

It was a move of political survival.

Joe Biden chose her as his running mate in August 2020. She was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 2021. During her term, she has tackled complex issues such as voting rights and the causes of migration in Central America.

But the script suddenly changed.

In July 2024, she took over the presidential nomination after Biden withdrew from the reelection race. Her digital strategy team focused its budget on producing social media content and winning over young voters with a highly distinctive visual style. As a result, her campaign moved away from traditional TV formats to embrace the language of the internet.

2024's campaign closed August with 540 million dollars raised.