Sen. Kamala Harris announced her plan to run for president on Good Morning America on this morning of Martin Luther King Day. In an introductory video (watch below) teasing a campaign launch rally in Oakland, California, on January 27, she said that “The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values.”
Harris, whose parents are immigrants from Jamaica and India, is seeking to make history on several fronts—as the first woman elected, the first African American woman elected, and the first Asian American elected. And she knows the kind of vicious resistance she’ll face:
“Let’s be honest. It’s going to be ugly,” Harris told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski during a December conference in San Francisco. “When you break things, it is painful. And you get cut. And you bleed.”
Before her election to the Senate in 2016, she had served as the attorney general of California since 2011. In the Senate, her prosecutorial experience has made her a standout on the Judiciary Committee.