Senator Kamala Harris has become the latest Democrat to toss her hat into the ring for the 2020 presidential race, joining an increasingly crowded field of contenders to challenge President Donald Trump.
“I am running for president of the United States,” the California lawmaker said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “I’m very excited about it.”
In a separate video that was released on social media at the same time as her TV appearance, Ms Harris also called on her supporters to join with her to “claim our future.”
“The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values,” she said. “That’s why I’m running for president of the United States. “I’m running to lift those voices, to bring our voices together.”
The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Ms Harris is the first woman of Asian heritage and the first African American woman to announce a run for the White House in 2020.
The 54-year old former California attorney-general joins Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who both announced exploratory committees for the Democratic nomination earlier this month.
Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary under Barack Obama, Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, and John Delaney, a congressman from Maryland, have also said they will join the race for the White House.
Other possible contenders include former vice-president Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, the congressman from Texas who staged an unsuccessful but unexpectedly competitive bid to unseat Republican senator Ted Cruz in November.
Ms Harris, who made her announcement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, said earlier this month that she believes America is “absolutely” ready for a woman of colour to be president.
“When people are waking up in the middle of the night with the thing that has been weighing on them . . . they aren’t waking up thinking that thought through the lens of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” she said at the time. “When they wake up thinking that thought, they are not thinking it through some demographic upholster.”
“When they wake up thinking that thought, it usually has to do with one of very few things: It usually has to do with their personal health, about their children or their parents,” she said. “Can I get a job? Keep a job? Pay the bills by the end of the month? Retire with dignity?”
“The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us,” she added.
An Oakland, California native, Ms Harris is a graduate of the historically black Howard University, according to her Senate website. She received her law degree from the University of California, Hasting and began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
From 2004 to 2010, Ms Harris served as District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. After that she was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California’s attorney-general, a position she held from 2011 to 2017.
