Who is Kamala Harris? What to know about the US vice president

Corrections & Clarifications: Kamala Harris earned a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. The location of the law school was incorrect in a previous version of the article.

Attention is shifting to Vice President Kamala Harris as President Joe Biden appears to be weighing whether to end his bid for reelection.

Harris, formerly a U.S. senator and California attorney general, is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is at the top of the speculative list of potential candidates to replace Biden at the top of the ticket if he were to withdraw from the race, as a growing number of top Democrats are suggesting.

Harris has been a familiar face in Arizona, making regular stops as recently as last month to the state, during her time in the Biden administration. Arizona, the state Biden won with his smallest margin of victory in 2020, remains a swing state this election cycle.

Here is what you need to know about Harris' background and personal life.

Who is Kamala Harris? She is the daughter of immigrants

Harris was born on Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, as the daughter of immigrants.

Her father, Donald Harris, was an economics professor at Stanford University, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was a cancer researcher.

Donald Harris emigrated from Jamaica and stayed involved in politics as an economic adviser to several Jamaican prime ministers throughout his career. He came to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961 for graduate study and received a Ph.D. in economics.

Kamala Harris' mother immigrated to the U.S. in 1958 from India. She went on to receive a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met her now ex-husband.

Harris' family moved from California to Champaign, Illinois, so her parents could pursue jobs at the University of Illinois.

Both of the vice president’s parents were active in the civil rights movement.

Harris has one younger sister by two years, Maya Harris, who works in advocacy and law. Maya Harris was an adviser on Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and worked for her sister's 2020 White House campaign with Biden.

Kamala Harris studied political science and economics at Howard University, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1986. She earned a law degree in 1989 from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, now UC Law San Francisco.

What is Kamala Harris' ethnic background?

Her father was born in Jamaica and her mother was born in India. Harris is the first woman and the first African American and the first person of South Asian descent to be vice president.

How old is Kamala Harris?

Harris, born on Oct. 20, 1964, is 59 years old.

How long has Harris been in politics?

Harris has been involved in politics for decades, holding various positions in California and on Capitol Hill.

After law school, she became a deputy district attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office from 1990-98 in her birthplace of Oakland, California. She specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases.

In 2004, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco and served through 2010. She was an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first same-sex wedding after California's Proposition 8 was overturned. 

She served as California's attorney general from 2011-17 after winning her first race in November 2010 by a slim margin over Republican Steve Cooley by 0.5% of a percentage point. On the consumer front, she won a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed on and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company, according to her White House biography.

She was elected in 2016 to serve in the U.S. Senate, defeating Democrat Loretta Sanchez in the general election in the state's top-two primary format. She served on the Senate's judiciary and intelligence committees.

What stands out about her tenure as vice president?

The vice president serves as president of the U.S. Senate. With Harris' vote, the Democrats and the independents who align with them control the chamber. Harris has set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president in history ― surpassing a record that had stood for nearly 200 years, according to her White House biography.

Who is Kamala Harris' husband?

Harris' husband is Douglas Emhoff. They were married nearly a decade ago on Aug. 22, 2014.

The second gentleman and Harris started dating in 2013 and married a year later. He was born on Oct. 13, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York. Emhoff spent his early years on the East Coast but moved to Southern California as a teenager.

He graduated from the University of California, Northridge, in 1987 and obtained a law degree from the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law. Emhoff opened his own law firm in 2000, which he sold in 2006. He worked in Washington, D.C., and California as a partner for DLA Piper in 2017 but stepped down when Harris became vice president.

Emhoff was previously married for 16 years to Kerstin Emhoff. He and Kerstin Emhoff have two children, Cole and Ella.

More on the election:Democrats worry Arizona may ‘slip away’ from an embattled Joe Biden