Senator Kamala D Harris recently said she would decide about a potential 2020 presidential bid in the next few weeks.
“Over the holiday, I will make that decision with my family,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC.
The Senator from California also added that she was ready for things to get “ugly” if she decides to run against president Donald Trump. “When you break things, it is painful,” she said. “And you get cut. And you bleed.”
If Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, decides to run, then she will be the first Indian-American woman and the first African-American woman to mount a bid for the White House.
Interestingly, Harris is not the only Indian origin candidate considering running for president.
Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Hawaii, is reportedly testing the waters before announcing her decision.
According to Hawaii Pacific University political analyst Dr John Hart, Gabbard is taking all the steps that a candidate would take before announcing her decision to run for president. Gabbard is writing a book, hired a consultant from Iowa, and took a trip to New Hampshire, pointed out Hart.
“She’s not afraid to run for president. She’s always thought big,” Dr Hart told KHON2.
One challenge Gabbard will face is being from Hawaii. “We don’t have a lot of electoral votes. Traditionally as a presidential candidate, you need to be able to pull huge blocks of votes which is why we often see a candidate from Texas, California, New York, Ohio, or a state like that,” he said.
Gabbard is likely to appeal to a different set of voters.
“She’s female. She’s a minority. She’s served in the armed forces. She has stood with progressives who are the expanding part of the Democratic party. She has a lot of positives and so certainly she could be looked at as a vice presidential candidate just as I believe Bernie Sanders would have been the Democratic nominee, she would’ve been looked at as a vice presidential candidate,” he said.
