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Former presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is Joe Biden's pick for running mate.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, made the announcement Tuesday. If elected, Harris would be the first female and the first Black U.S. vice president.

In March, Biden pledged to choose a female running mate, and the former vice president has received to choose a Black woman. Harris is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, although she told the in 2019 that she simply calls herself "an American."

Harris nabbed the running mate slot over other rumored contenders, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former United Nations ambassador Susan Rice, and Reps. Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.).

During a June 27 Democratic primary debate, Harris engaged in a tense exchange with Biden on his opposition to to racially integrate schools in the 1970s.

After Tuesday's announcement, Harris that Biden "can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."

On the healthcare front, Harris has said that, as a senator and as the attorney general of California, she fought to prevent the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

She co-sponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) single-payer legislation, although she later walked back support for eliminating private health insurance. Harris said she would be open to alternative pathways to a "Medicare for All" plan, according to

In July 2019, she which guarantees healthcare for all over a 10-year period, but also includes a place for private insurers. Harris said her proposed system would be funded by taxing households earning $100,000 or more and a tax on Wall Street stock and bond trades.

She also by allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to set "fair" prices for any drug that is sold for less in "comparably" developed Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD ) countries, such as Canada, the U.K., France, or Japan, as well as for for any drug that's price goes up more than the cost of inflation. That "fair price" would be no higher than 100% of the average price in those comparable OECD countries, according to Harris' website.

Harris said she would end "tax loopholes" for pharmaceutical advertising and would leverage regulatory authority to prevent price-gouging.

At an October 2019 primary debate, Harris called for more attention to women's reproductive rights, and expressed her disappointment that the issue had not been raised at any of the previous debates, according to the.

"It's not an exaggeration to say women will die because these Republican legislatures in these various states, who are out of touch with America, are telling women what to do with their bodies," she stated.

On other matters, Harris co-sponsored legislation to ban police choke holds, racial profiling, and "no-knock warrants" according to the

She also took to Twitter to call for a federal investigation of the death of , an emergency medical technician who was fatally shot by police in her apartment.

But Harris has taken heat for being too "deferential to police," during her time as a prosecutor, according to an editorial in . An opponent of the death penalty, Harris declaring California's enforcement of the death penalty unconstitutional. Harris said she was still against the death penalty personally, but promised voters she would enforce it, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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