Washington: Kamala Harris, the barrier-breaking California senator and the state’s former attorney general, has officially launched her presidential campaign for 2020, jumping into a diverse Democratic field increasingly dominated by a new generation of women and minority candidates.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, launched her campaign for the White House on Monday – America’s Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday – in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“Let’s do this, together. Let’s claim our future. For ourselves, for our children, and for our country,” Harris , 54, said in a campaign video that was released to coincide with her appearance on the morning television show.
The first-term senator portrayed herself as a fighter for justice, decency and equality in the video. “They’re the values we as Americans cherish, and they’re all on the line now,” Harris says. “The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values.”
She will formally launch her campaign on Sunday at a rally in Oakland, California, the city where she was born and where she began her career as a prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
Harris’s announcement follows the high-profile entrances of her fellow senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York as well as Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and former housing secretary Juilán Castro.
She may also face competition from several other senate colleagues who are also weighing presidential bids in a primary race that has no frontrunner, including Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
