Senator Kamala Harris Announces Her 2020 Presidential Candidacy
California Senator Kamala Harris is officially running for president in 2020. Harris joins a field already crowded with the likes of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, and former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro, all of whom have recently announced the launch of their own presidential exploratory committees or bids. Harris is launching a full-scale campaign.
Harris, a first-term Democratic senator, who described herself as “a joyful warrior” to Vogue in 2018, made the announcement on Monday morning, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in a nod to the historic nature of her run—a biracial woman born to immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, she would be the first black woman and Asian-American to be a major party nominee for the presidency if she ultimately secures the Democratic nomination—and the civil rights movement that made it possible. “I am running for president of the United States, and I’m very excited about it,” Harris said during an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America. “I’m honored to be able to make my announcement on the day that we commemorate [Dr. King].” NPR reports that she has also “modeled her campaign logo on graphics used by the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm,” the first black woman to run for president.
Harris’s campaign simultaneously launched her campaign video with her announcement, which promotes unity and bears the tagline: “We know America can be better than this—but it’s on us to build it. We have to fight for it. Together.”
“I have the unique experience of having been a leader in local government, state government, and federal government,” Harris said on GMA. “The American public wants a fighter . . . and I’m prepared to do that.” She went on: “I love my country, and this is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to fight for the best of who we are.” Harris will hold her first campaign rally on January 27 in Oakland, California.
