When Kamala Harris agreed to be vice presidential running mate to Joe Biden and clasped his hand on stage in August 2020, the duo's future seemed so bright.

Biden was on track to ousting Donald Trump and returning a sense of normalcy to the United States, thanks in large part to his decadeslong political experience. Harris was a charismatic, energetic leader for the new age — a woman of color and child of immigrant parents — who came into politics after fighting her way up to become the top public prosecutor in California.

Harris might now be called on to save the Democrats' presidential ticket and face off against Donald Trump in November. But her shine has dimmed during her four years in the White House. 

Harris' American story

Kamala Harris was born into a highly educated migrant family in Oakland, California, in 1964. Harris' mother was Indian-born breast cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan, her father was economics professor Donald J. Harris from Jamaica. Both of Harris' parents were active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

According to Kamala's autobiography, "The Truths We Hold," this experience influenced her own career. She recalled Gopalan telling her and her sister, Maya: "Don't just sit around and complain about things. Do something!"

Her parents' marriage fell apart when Kamala was seven. Five years later, Gopalan landed research work in Canada and they moved to Montreal.

The future US vice president attended high school in Canada. She then moved back to the US to study political science and economics in Washington, DC, and then to her home state of California to study law in 1986.

Harris passed the bar in 1990 and began her career as district attorney, rising through the ranks to become California's attorney general in 2011. She was the first female, Black and South Asian American to hold this post.

'Top cop' in California

Harris' career as a prosecutor was a mixed bag. She styled herself as California's "top cop," but angered the police with her refusal to seek the death sentence even in cases when police officers were killed. At the same time, she was criticized for not doing more to tackle corruption within law enforcement.

She spearheaded a system of hefty fines and potential incarceration for parents whose children were skipping too many classes, which disproportionally affected families of color. She laughed off the issue of legalizing marijuana in 2014, only to say she was "absolutely in favor" of it while running for the Democratic presidential nomination five years later.

In 2015, she announced she was running for the US Senate and secured the support of Joe Biden and then-President  Barack Obama. In 2017, she became the second Black woman to serve in the Senate. In 2019, she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination with Biden as one of her opponents.

Bickering with Biden

During one of the debates, Harris pressured Biden over his cooperation with US senators who opposed desegregation efforts in the 1970s and the 1980s. She accused Biden of working with them against "busing" — a practice that saw children from minority areas being transported to predominantly white schools to diversify classrooms.

Biden responded by saying she "mischaracterized" his position and noted that he chose to be a "public defender" rather than a prosecutor during the unrest following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Harris' years as a prosecutor also came back to haunt her with the "Kamala is a cop" meme during her campaign. She eventually dropped out of the race and supported Biden, who later asked her to be his vice president.

'Border czar' during border crisis

Biden and Harris fought a tough, acrimonious campaign together and eventually defeated Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. They were sworn in on January 20th, 2021. just two weeks after a violent mob broke into the Capitol demanding the vote to be overturned. Harris once again made history — she was the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of Indian origin to serve as a US vice president.

The job gave Harris the authority to take over the administration if the president dies or is deemed unfit for duty. But Harris has struggled to raise her profile during her time in the White House.

In 2021, Biden assigned her the task of tackling immigration by combating the "root causes" of people leaving Latin America.

"I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this," Biden said of Harris at the time. "When she speaks, she speaks for me." 

The gift turned out to be poisonous. Despite Harris' efforts and meetings with Latin American leaders, the number of undocumented border crossings continued to grow, reaching record highs last year. The Republican Party was quick to dub Harris the "border czar," and then lambast her for not stemming the number of people crossing the border.

'Everything is at stake'

Meanwhile, Harris found a different battleground against her political rivals. When the  US Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade and effectively rolled back the right to abortion in large parts of the country in 2022, Harris became a powerful voice in favor of protecting that right. Earlier this year, she kicked off a "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour across the US.

"Extremists across our country continue to wage a full-on attack against hard-won, hard-fought freedoms," Harris was quoted as saying by the White House.

Trump has endorsed the Supreme Court decision and claimed credit for it.

Just days ahead of the Trump-Biden debate, Harris warned that "everything is at stake" regarding reproductive rights if Trump were reelected.

The future of the Democratic Party?

Following Biden's poor debate performance, Harris was among the president's quickest and most vocal proponents, even as other Democratic politicians were floating her name, among others, to replace Biden on the presidential ticket.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing shortly after the Biden-Trump debate that one of the reasons Biden picked her back in 2020 "is because she is, indeed, the future of the party."

Edited by: Sean M. Sinico