Three Firsts at Once: Woman, Black American, South Asian American
Kamala Devi Harris became the first woman vice president of the United States on January 20, 2021, when she was sworn into office as the 49th vice president following the Biden-Harris victory in the November 2020 presidential election. Born in Oakland, California to immigrant parents, her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris from India and her father Donald Harris from Jamaica, she carried into the office a biography that made her milestone three records at once: the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to hold the vice presidency.
The Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University documented that milestone precisely: 232 years had elapsed since George Washington took the first presidential oath of office before a woman reached the executive branch at the vice presidential level.
Harris's parents each came to the United States separately for graduate study. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, arrived from Chennai, India in 1958 at age 19 to enroll at UC Berkeley, where she became a biomedical researcher. Her father, Donald Harris, came from Jamaica on scholarship, also to Berkeley, and later became a Stanford University economics professor. They married in 1963.
Harris grew up primarily in Oakland and Berkeley. The family regularly attended Rainbow Sign, a Black cultural center in Berkeley that attracted figures like Nina Simone and Maya Angelou. That community shaped her identity alongside her South Asian heritage. In 1981, she enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the historically Black university that remained a touchstone throughout her public life. She graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics, and that same year was initiated into Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (AKA), the oldest African American Greek-letter sorority, founded at Howard in 1908.
The Road That Made It Possible: Ferraro, Palin, and Clinton
Geraldine Ferraro was the first. In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale selected the three-term New York congresswoman as his running mate, making Ferraro the first woman nominated for vice president by a major political party. The Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost to Republican incumbent Ronald Reagan in a 49-state electoral landslide. The defeat was decisive. Yet Ferraro later described a moment during the 1984 campaign that stayed with her: she spotted a girl in the crowd holding a sign that read, "Gerry, my mommy told me nothing is impossible anymore." Ferraro did not live to see Harris win the office she had opened. She died in 2011.
Twenty-four years later, Sarah Palin became the second woman nominated for vice president by a major party, selected by Republican presidential nominee John McCain in 2008. The McCain-Palin ticket lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Then came Hillary Clinton. Clinton ran for president in 2016 and became the first woman nominated for president by a major party. She won the popular vote by approximately 2.9 million votes and lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump.
Ferraro, Palin, and Clinton each broke a barrier. None won. Harris was the first to win. Thirty-six years separated Ferraro's 1984 nomination from Harris's 2020 election victory.
Shirley Chisholm had preceded them all on a separate track. In 1972, Chisholm, who was the first Black woman elected to Congress, sought the Democratic presidential nomination and won 152 delegate votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. She ran without realistic prospects of winning, and she did not win. But she ran, and she forced the question.
From Oakland Deputy DA to the U.S. Senate
Kamala Harris graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in 1989 and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1990. She began her legal career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, prosecuting gang violence, drug trafficking, and sexual abuse cases for eight years. Oakland was her jurisdiction.
In 2003, Harris won election as District Attorney of San Francisco, taking office in January 2004. She was the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American to hold that office. The career pattern that would define the next two decades was already visible: each new office also set a record. As San Francisco DA, Harris created the Back on Track reentry program, which redirected first-time, non-violent drug offenders into supervised education, job training, and community service instead of incarceration. Several other jurisdictions adopted the model.
Harris won election as California Attorney General in 2010, again becoming the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American to hold that statewide office. Her most consequential achievement in Sacramento came in 2012. Five of the nation's largest mortgage servicers offered a national settlement following the foreclosure crisis; other state attorneys general accepted it. Harris rejected California's initial allocation of $4 billion and negotiated until the state received approximately $20 billion in relief for California homeowners, covering principal reductions and short-sale agreements for roughly 250,000 families underwater on their mortgages.
In 2016, Harris won election to the U.S. Senate from California, becoming the second Black woman ever elected to the Senate and the first South Asian American senator. She quickly became known for a prosecutorial questioning style in confirmation and oversight hearings, and introduced or co-sponsored more than 100 pieces of legislation during her four-year Senate term.
Biden's Selection and the 2020 Presidential Election
In March 2020, Joe Biden publicly committed to selecting a woman as his vice presidential running mate. On August 11, 2020, Biden named Kamala Harris as his choice, making her the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American on a major party presidential ticket.
The Biden-Harris ticket won the November 3, 2020 general election with 306 electoral votes to the Trump-Pence ticket's 232, and 81.2 million popular votes, the most ever received by a presidential ticket at that time.
Harris was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, approximately 100 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the United States.
The Swearing-In: Sotomayor, Two Bibles, and the Color Purple
At 11:40 a.m. on January 20, 2021, approximately 20 minutes before President Biden took his oath of office, Justice Sonia Sotomayor administered the vice presidential oath of office to Kamala Harris at the United States Capitol. Sotomayor herself had made history in 2009 as the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court, a milestone that followed Sandra Day O'Connor's appointment as the first woman on the Supreme Court in 1981. The layering of firsts in that single ceremony was deliberate and pointed.
Harris placed her hand on two Bibles. Neither was chosen casually.
Harris wore purple that day, a coat and dress widely interpreted as a blend of Democratic blue and Republican red. The color also read as a tribute to Shirley Chisholm, whose signature campaign color was purple. Harris wore pearls as well, a nod to Alpha Kappa Alpha's signature accessory.
Standing beside her, Doug Emhoff simultaneously became the first Second Gentleman of the United States and the first Jewish spouse of a vice president. The inauguration produced multiple historical firsts at once, and most of them were concentrated in the people standing on the Capitol steps.
A Record-Breaking Term: 33 Tie-Breaking Senate Votes
The vice president's constitutional role includes presiding over the U.S. Senate and casting tie-breaking votes when the chamber deadlocks at 50-50. During the first two years of the Biden administration, the Senate divided exactly that way. Harris cast tie-breaking vote after tie-breaking vote throughout her term.
Her final total: 33.
The previous record was 31, set by John C. Calhoun over nearly eight years in office between 1825 and 1832. Harris surpassed Calhoun's 191-year-old record in approximately two years. Her 32nd tie-breaking vote, cast in December 2023, broke the record; she added one more before her term ended.
The votes were not procedural formalities. Harris's tie-breaking votes passed the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. They passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate and clean energy investment in U.S. history. Numerous federal judicial nominations cleared the Senate by the same 51-50 margin.
After President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, 2024, he endorsed Harris the same day. She secured the Democratic presidential nomination without a contested primary, becoming only the second woman nominated for president by a major party, following Hillary Clinton in 2016. Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate and ran a 107-day general election campaign. Donald Trump won the November 2024 election with 312 electoral votes to Harris's 226, carrying all seven major battleground states. Harris left office on January 20, 2025.
The question of who becomes the first woman president of the United States remains open.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was the first woman to run for vice president?
Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party, selected by Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984. The Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost to Ronald Reagan in a 49-state landslide. Sarah Palin became the second in 2008, as the Republican vice presidential nominee on John McCain's ticket. Kamala Harris was the third, and the first to win.
Was Kamala Harris the first Black vice president?
Yes. Harris was simultaneously the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to serve as Vice President of the United States. All three were new records, achieved at the same moment on January 20, 2021.
What religion is Kamala Harris?
Harris was raised in a household that observed both Hindu and Baptist traditions, reflecting her Indian mother and her Black American community in Oakland. She has been a member of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, a historically Black congregation.
How did Kamala Harris become vice president?
Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate on August 11, 2020. The Biden-Harris ticket won the November 3, 2020 presidential election with 306 electoral votes and 81.2 million popular votes. Harris was inaugurated as the 49th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 2021.
Did Kamala Harris run for president in 2024?
Yes. After President Biden withdrew from the 2024 race in July 2024, he endorsed Harris, who secured the Democratic presidential nomination. She ran 107 days against Republican Donald Trump and lost the November 2024 general election, with Trump winning 312 electoral votes to Harris's 226.