Advertisement
Home Celebrity Celebrity News

A natural born leader: Get to know the real Kamala Harris

The presidential hopeful’s journey to the White House

Kamala Harris will make history if she’s voted in as the 47th President of the United States on November 5.

Advertisement

If she does become the US’s first female president, there will be those who’ll say she’s only got the top job because she stood against a candidate who is reviled by many Americans, including some Republicans.

But political experts say if she is successful, it won’t simply be because many voters would rather have anyone other than former president Donald Trump in the White House.

Kamala, 60, will get there on her own merits, which include a solid track record as a senator and then vice president, a steely determination to make a difference, and the savvy execution of a long-term game plan designed to get her to the pinnacle of politics.

It’s no fluke that the former prosecutor has ended up in the race to become president. Journalist Nathan Heller interviewed dozens of people whose lives have crossed paths with Kamala’s and observed, “What at first seem lucky breaks in her life tend on examination to reveal themselves as outcomes of strategic effort.”

Advertisement

Kamala was born to highly-educated immigrants in Oakland, California. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan, who died in 2009, was a biologist from India and became a leading breast cancer researcher. Kamala’s Jamaican-born father Donald J. Harris, 86, was a professor of economics at Stanford University.

Two images side-by-side of Kamala with each of her parents
Role models: Dad Donald and mum Shyamala.

Donald and Shyamala divorced when Kamala was 12. Then, she moved with her mother and sister Maya, 57, now a lawyer, to Montreal, Canada. An incident there would set Kamala on the path to becoming a lawyer, then a politician. She learned that a school friend was being sexually abused by her stepfather. Later, she said, “A big part of the reason I wanted to be a prosecutor was to protect people like her.”

After getting a degree in political science and economics, then going to law school, her first job was in the district attorney’s office in Alameda, near San Francisco. She got her first taste of the public spotlight in the mid 1990s when she started dating Willie Brown, a flamboyant and influential local politician. He was 60 and Kamala was 29.

Advertisement

Willie, now 90, ran for mayor of San Francisco and won. However, before his swearing in, he and Kamala split up after two years together. They stayed good friends and Kamala learned some important lessons about politics from him.

Meanwhile, her law career was going from strength to strength. People often described her as generally empathetic but as hard as nails when necessary. Kamala headed a unit overseeing sexual abuse crimes in Alameda. She later moved to the San Francisco DA’s office, where she prosecuted murderers and other violent criminals, then ran a unit specialising in bringing to justice those involved in sex trafficking and the financial abuse of the elderly.

In 2002, she ran for the elected role of District Attorney of San Francisco. Not expected to win, she received 56 percent of the vote after what was described as a “forceful” campaign. An expert networker, she won over many of the powerful California dynasties, including the Getty family, says journalist Meghan Agnew.

“Her raw ambition and charisma got her into the most exclusive rooms in the city. She was the ultimate networker.”

Advertisement

But she couldn’t only rely on having friends in high places. She worked hard as district attorney, including setting up units focused on environmental and hate crimes. In 2010, she won the election to the Attorney General of California.

Kamala Harris walking in a campaign with her husband's arm over her shoulder
On the campaign trail with husband Doug.

It was clear she was destined for even greater things in politics. She won election to the US Senate in 2016. Two years later, she garnered attention for using her courtroom skills to grill controversial Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Kamala – who in 2014 married lawyer Doug Emhoff, 60, after meeting him on a blind date, and become stepmother to his children, Cole, 30, and Ella, 25 – was named as Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2020 elections. His victory meant Kamala became the first woman, first African-American and first Asian-American to be vice president.

Advertisement

Set to again team up with Biden to run against Trump in this year’s election, on Sunday July 21, she got a phone call while at home watching a cooking show.

It was Joe, breaking the news that he was pulling out of the race, and hoped to endorse her in his place. “That was a dramatic turn to the day,” notes Kamala.

Her supporters say she has the drive, intelligence and compassion to make a great president. But whatever the election outcome, Biden says choosing her as his second-in-command was “the best decision I ever made”.

Kamala says…

  • “My mother had a saying, ‘Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.’”
  • “Women have an equal stake in our future and should have an equal stake in our politics.”
  • “My mother always said, ‘Don’t just sit around and complain. Do something.’”
  • “I think people will want a president who will be interested in the things that keep them up at night.”
  • “My entire career, I have only had one client: the people.”

Related stories


Get NZ Woman’s Weekly home delivered!  

Subscribe and save up to 29% on a magazine subscription.

Advertisement
Advertisement