First-term Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, a rising party star and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, launched her 2020 campaign for the White House on Monday by touting her experience as a prosecutor.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – First-term Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, a rising party star and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, launched her 2020 campaign for the White House on Monday by touting her experience as a prosecutor.
Harris, 54, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, enters the race with the potential advantage of being the Democratic candidate who looks most like the party’s increasingly diverse base of young, female and minority voters.
“This is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are,” Harris said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in announcing her candidacy.
Harris, who made history in 2016 as the first black woman elected to the U. S. Senate from California, timed her announcement for the U. S. Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. She said he was an aspirational leader.
“We are the best of who we are when we fight to achieve these ideals,” she said on ABC.
Harris, a former California state attorney general, has become popular with liberal activists for her tough questioning of Trump administration appointees and officials, including Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, during Senate hearings.
Harris’ campaign will focus on reducing the high cost of living with a middle-class tax credit, pursuing immigration and criminal justice changes and a Medicare-for-all healthcare system, aides said. She has said she will reject corporate political action committee donations.
Harris joins what is expected to be a crowded field to challenge Trump, the likely Republican candidate, in 2020.
