HOUSTON — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s pick for a running mate is historic. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is the first minority woman to be on a major party’s ticket for a presidential election.
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“We knew it was going to be a woman,” KHOU 11 political analyst Bob Stein said. “I think in the last couple of days we knew it would be a woman of color.”
Stein said Harris wasn't selected to sway voters from President Donald Trump to Biden; he said she was picked to get Democratic voters to the polls.
“No one’s persuading someone not to vote for, or to vote for, another candidate,” Stein said. “This is all about bringing out your base. This is all about enthusiasm this is about turnout.”
Stein said voters already know who they would vote for if the election were held today. Harris is bi-racial. Her mother is from India and her father is from Jamaica.
Stein said the selection of a woman of color for the ticket is part of a strategy that is believed to draw minority voters who did not participate in the presidential election four years ago between Hillary Clinton and Trump.
“In the big cities, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, Columbus,” Stein said. “Where large numbers of Black voters who showed up in 2008 and 2012 for President (Barack) Obama.”
Houston’s chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. called the selection of Harris for a running mate “a defining moment in history,” in a statement released on Tuesday.
The League of Women Voters of Houston agrees.
“No matter where you stand in your politics, a hundred years ago, women were fighting for the right to vote,” said the LWV of Houston president MaryJane Mudd. “They were put in jail, they had to go on starvation, they had to do so many things that we don’t even realize today. And yet, 100 years later, here is the first minority vice presidential pick. It’s incredible, it is historical.”