WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Born in Oakland to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, Senator Kamala Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. In the role, she created a reentry program for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris speak after the Democratic Presidential Debate at Texas Southern University’s Health and PE Center on September 12, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) 
Then-Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris listens to questions after a Democratic primary debate in Miami in 2019. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File) 
Sen. Kamala Harris hugs former Vice President Joe Biden after introducing him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit, Michigan.(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) 
Kamala Harris introduces former Vice President Joe Biden at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) 
Then-Vice President Joe Biden, right, shakes hands with Sen. Kamala Harris as her husband Douglas Emhoff watches during a a mock swearing in ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2017. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File) 
Democratic presidential hopeful California Senator Kamala Harris speaks to the press in the Spin Room after participating in the fifth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job, and focused on issues including the foreclosure crisis. She declined to defend the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As her national profile grew, Harris built a reputation around her work as a prosecutor. After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of Trump administration officials during congressional hearings. In one memorable moment last year, Harris tripped up Attorney General William Barr when she repeatedly pressed him on whether Trump or other White House officials pressured him to investigate certain people.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.