And just like that: a battle between two elderly male politicians just became a race between an almost-assassinated former president and the first-ever female vice president of the United States. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Kamala Harris , 59, said last month as she confirmed her bid to be the Democrats’ White House nominee after Joe Biden’s dramatic exit from the 2024 election race. She has now secured that title, stepping onto the stage at this week’s Democratic National Convention as the party’s presidential nominee after Joe Biden’s dramatic exit from the 2024 election race.
The former California senator will formally accept the nomination in Chicago on Thursday, after years of doubt even from within her own party that she could ever run for America’s highest political office. Harris, a self-described progressive prosecutor and the daughter of two immigrant parents, thanked Biden, 81, for his “extraordinary leadership” when he stepped down last month, saying it was her intention “to earn and win this nomination”. Now nominated, she stands within touching distance of becoming the first female president of the United States — quite the achievement for a woman who has spent a career smashing glass ceilings (she is already the first female and person of African-American and South Asian-American descent to become vice-president.