Senator Kamala Harris, who ended her presidential campaign on a disappointing note last month could still find herself in the White House after Democratic Party frontrunner Joe Biden said he would consider her "for anything" she would be interested in, including the position of vice president.
Harris, who was once seen as a leading contender in the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination, abruptly ended her campaign on December 3, citing financial pressures and after months of polling in single digits.
The 55-year-old Senator from California, is a fierce critic of US president Donald Trump, a Republican.
Biden, 77, told the Sacramento Bee's California Nation podcast that he would consider Harris as his running mate in the 2020 presidential elections if he gets the Democratic Party's nomination.
"She's qualified to be president, and I'd consider her for anything that she would be interested in," Biden, who was US vice President from 2009 to 2017, said on Tuesday.
Harris, who is of mixed Indian and African heritage, had been polling poorly in weeks prior to her surprise announcement to suspend her 2020 election bid.
The campaign of the former District Attorney of San Francisco appeared full of promise when it was launched in January 2019, but she struggled to make headway in a crowded field alongside Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
During the first Democratic primary debate, Harris confronted Biden on race issues, specifically about the time he spent in the Senate fighting against federally-mandated busing to desegregate schools and his comments on working with segregationist senators.
After learning of Harris' surprise decision to bow out of the 2020 presidential race, Biden initially said he had "mixed emotions about it" and declined to say whether he would consider her as a running mate if he was selected as the Democratic nominee, US media reports said in December.
He later wrote on Twitter that Harris is "an incredible talent with unlimited potential."
After serving two terms as the District Attorney of San Francisco, Harris was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California's Attorney General.
In 2017, Harris, the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian-origin cancer researcher from Chennai and Donald Harris, a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica, was sworn in as a US Senator for California. This made her the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. Harris lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Doug Emhoff.
Kulsuma Aktergetty images