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Sen. Kamala Harris is officially the first woman, first Black person, and first South Asian American person to be elected vice president of the United States. She and incoming President Joe Biden have won their bid against President Donald Trump and will be sworn in this January.

Harris has made history: No woman has ever served as vice president or president in the US. Her election to the office and the representation she brings is significant for many voters.

Shes the first Black woman to be considered vice president of this country, and it means so much to me, being a Black woman who is a leader, who looks up to people like her, Brittany Oliver, a womens rights activist and communications director who backed Harris during the primary, previously told Vox.

Harriss nomination for this role was groundbreaking. As the new vice president, Harris could play a major role in shaping policies and priorities for a Biden administration, while sending a strong message about whats possible for other women and people of color.

Some progressives have been conflicted about her nomination, however, given her record on criminal justice and positions she took on wrongful convictions and independent investigations of police shootings when she served as attorney general of California.

Harris spent much of her career as a prosecutor before getting elected to the Senate in 2016; she also ran for the presidency before she was named Bidens running mate this summer. During the presidential campaign, she acknowledged the historic nature of her candidacy.

It really does help to have examples of what can be done and role models, things you can point to, to make it clear that its not impossible and that, in fact, its quite probable that you can do these things and will do those things, Harris said in a recent interview with television host Padma Lakshmi.

Harris was named Bidens vice presidential pick in August, and she brings an extensive career in public service to the role. Shes served as Californias junior senator for nearly four years, and sits on the powerful Judiciary and Intelligence committees. During her time in the Senate, shes become known for her pointed questions of Trump administration nominees and officials including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Policies that Harris has led as a senator have included the LIFT Act, which would provide monthly cash payments to many middle-class households, and the Justice in Policing Act, a sweeping police reform bill that would limit the legal protections that law enforcement officers currently have.

As a presidential nominee, Harris took more moderate stances on issues including health care, though she is considered liberal relative to most members of the Senate. One of her first campaign proposals focused on increasing teacher pay, while another sought to bar states from implementing restrictive abortion laws. Shes also been outspoken on immigration reform and proposed executive actions that could establish a path to citizenship for DREAMers, or undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.

As the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, both of whom were civil rights activists, Harris has said that combating racial disparities has been a central focus of her career. She graduated from Howard University in 1986 and the University of Californias Hastings Law School in 1989, and has focused heavily on what she describes as reforming the criminal justice system from within. Before becoming a senator, Harris served for six years as California attorney general and two terms as San Francisco district attorney.

As Voxs German Lopez has written, her broader prosecutorial record as attorney general and district attorney has been criticized for its contradictions:

She pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, but also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proved innocent. She refused to pursue the death penalty against a man who killed a police officer, but also defended Californias death penalty system in court. She implemented training programs to address police officers racial biases, but also resisted calls to get her office to investigate certain police shootings.

During her presidential campaign, the statement Kamala Is a Cop was used frequently to question her views on criminal justice reform.

Harris has emphasized that she used her time as prosecutor to hold major banks accountable for the mortgage crisis and implement changes including a database to track police use of force, though activists dont think she was willing to go far enough.

There have been prosecutors that refused to seat Black jurors, refused to prosecute lynchings, disproportionately condemned young Black men to death row and looked the other way in the face of police brutality, Harris said at a June 2019 event, Politico reported. It matters who is in those rooms. I knew I had to be in those rooms. We have to be in those rooms even when there arent many like us there.

Harriss nomination highlighted the importance of Black women, and women of color broadly, to the Democratic Party, energizing some voters who were inspired by her candidacy.

Kamala, really. She kicked it into overdrive, especially for what Ive seen in the Black community. A lot of people were already ... like, Eh, yeah, Ill vote for him [Biden], Ill do what I got to do. And then when she was put on the ticket, it was, Im voting, Christopher Walton, chair of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County, previously told Voxs Sean Collins.

As the countrys new vice president-elect, Harris also dramatically expands the scope of leadership roles that women have held in US government. Weve opened up a space and possibility, Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, previously told Vox.

This year, a record-breaking number of Black, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Native American women have filed to run for the House, according to Rutgers Universitys Center for American Women and Politics. And Harriss success could well spur more women to do so, while increasingly normalizing greater representation in these leadership roles.

Voters are also looking to her and Biden to continue addressing racial and gender disparities in the policies they focus on; Oliver cited Harriss work on maternal mortality legislation as one example of such efforts.

It was back in November that she did a debate and talked about the importance of Black women, says Oliver. She used her platform to uplift Black women. That is exactly what the Democratic Party needs to hear.

Sean Collins contributed reporting.

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Election results: Kamala Harris is elected the first woman vice president - Vox.com

America is a divided nation and the presidential campaign only made the condition worse.

Partisanship has spiked. Armed militias showed up at campaign rallies. Gun sales soared.

In New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other cities, shop owners nailed plywood over their windows. In a Gallup Poll last month, a record 64% of people said they were afraid of what will happen if their favored candidate doesnt win.

You just dont want to talk to people anymore, Mary Jo Dalrymple, a 56-year-old retiree in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, told me. Youre afraid it will be unpleasant.

This isnt normal not in decades, perhaps not since the Civil War.

Even with nearly a quarter-million deaths, and 100,000 infections a day, our most durable problem isnt the COVID-19 pandemic; a vaccine can solve that. Nor is it the recession; the economy likely will recover once the virus is quelled.

Our biggest challenge is the political polarization that has made the country increasingly ungovernable, no matter who wins.

Polarization has been part of our politics for decades. But under President Donald Trump, it has turned into something worse: delegitimization the practice of condemning your opponents as un-American, undemocratic, and unworthy of respect.

Trump entered politics by questioning President Barack Obamas legitimacy, suggesting falsely that he might not be a U.S. citizen. This year, he charged again without evidence that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was mentally and physically infirm and the puppet of radical socialists who hate our country.

On the other side, plenty of Democrats believe Trump is a would-be authoritarian who would gladly destroy the Constitution.

At their first debate, Biden called Trump one of the most racist presidents weve ever had, overlooking the fact that 12 of the first 18 presidents owned slaves.

Many Democrats and Republicans see the other side not merely as political rivals, but as an existential threat. That creates a dilemma: If you think your opponents dont share a basic commitment to constitutional government, why would you work with them?

That problem wont disappear once the election is over. Unless one party captures both houses of Congress and the White House, it will stand in the way of the next president accomplishing anything.

In my view, heres what needs to happen.

Step One is making sure the election is seen as legitimate. Partisans on both sides think their opponents are trying to cheat a sentiment stoked, of course, by Trumps constant declarations that the voting process is rigged and his refusal to promise a peaceful transition of power if he loses.

A president who wins by underhanded means will rightly appear illegitimate. He may claim a mandate, but he wont have one.

The runner-up needs to acknowledge reality and give a concession speech the more graceful, the better. Thats how the losing side acknowledges that the winner is legitimate. If the losing candidate refuses to do it, other leaders in his party should do it for him.

Step Two is working to bring the country together, as earlier presidents did after divisive campaigns.

That means a serious attempt to revive bipartisan deal making in Congress, starting where the two parties share similar goals another economic relief bill to help the country through the pandemic, for example.

It also requires granting your opponents the presumption of legitimacy, no matter how much you dislike their policies.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, has already said he would try to work with Republicans in Congress if hes elected. Progressive Democrats have sniffed that his nostalgia for a long-ago era of comity is naive.

But Biden knows how the modern Senate operates. He was vice president when Obama tried and failed to win GOP support for an economic stimulus bill in 2009 and for an immigration reform package in 2013.

His talk of bipartisanship may have been a campaign gambit; swing voters like the idea of the two parties working together. It may even be aimed at splitting moderate Republicans from Trump loyalists. Even so, its worth a try.

Its now almost forgotten, but Trump was elected in 2016 in part because he promised, as a businessman, to work with both parties.

In his first year in office, he tried to cut deals with Democrats on immigration reform and infrastructure spending. As recently as last week, he was negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at arms length, to be sure over a possible stimulus bill.

Even if the results are modest, a bipartisan effort would be an encouraging departure from gridlock. A president who gets things done as opposed to merely insulting his critics could see his legitimacy and his popularity grow.

Its been done before: Ronald Reagan did it in the 1980s; Bill Clinton did it in the 1990s; George W. Bush did it in the early 2000s after a disputed election that was decided in the Supreme Court.

If the next president hopes to leave a substantive legacy, he should follow those presidents, work to stem the tide of polarization that has poisoned our politics, and make Americas government work again.

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Commentary: Legitimacy for our democracy was on the ballot - Concord Monitor

Joe Biden won key several battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. USA TODAY

Politicians on both sides of theaisle, including former Presidents, presidential candidates, and Congresspeoplehave taken to Twitter to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harrison clinching the victory over President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

"In this election, under circumstances never experienced, Americans turned out in numbers never seen. And once every vote is counted, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will have won a historic and decisive victory," former President Barack Obamawrote in a lengthy statement issued on Twitter.

"I know he'll do the job with the best interests of every American at heart, whether or not he had their vote. So I encourage every American to give him a chance and lend him your support."

"America has spoken and democracy has won," tweeted former President Bill Clinton, less than an hour after the Associated Press officially called the election for Biden after nabbing the necessary electoral college votes.

Hillary Clinton also congratulated Biden and Harris on clinching the victory: "It's a history-making ticket, a repudiation of Trump, and a new page for America."

Biden officially won by grabbing Pennsylvania's 20 votes, a crucial swing state in the election that Trump won in 2016.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who ran for the Democratic presidential ticket,congratulatedBiden and Harris for the win: "Lets go make some big, structural change."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), who competed against Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, tweeted a congratulations of not just the incoming President and Vice President, but of grassroots organizers: "I want to congratulate all those who worked so hard to make this historic day possible."

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was among the few Republicans to cross the aisle. "I will be praying for you and your success," the former Republican presidential prospect tweeted."Now is the time to heal deep wounds."

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who ranagainst former President Barack Obama in 2012,also tweeted congratulating Biden and Harris.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), following a congratulatory message,shared a days-old clip of CNN correspondent Abby Phillip discussing Trump's political career beginning with falsehoods accusing former President Barack Obama.

"Poetic justice," she said.

Below, see how politicians from former presidents to newly-elected Congresspeople have responded to Biden and Harris' win.

Follow Joshua Bote on Twitter: @joshua_bote.

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Obama congratulates Biden, Harris, says it is up to them to mend 'deeply and bitterly divided' country - USA TODAY

But its diversifying electorate, suburban swings in Democrats' favor and a series of close calls there during Trump's presidency have turned Georgia into a battleground. And the presence of two Senate seats on the ballot have made it marquee in the race for control of Congress, as well.

Georgia, along with the other Sun Belt states, is likely to be among the fastest battlegrounds to report its results on election night. That reality makes the three states indicators of whether Biden is on course for a decisive win, or if the candidates are facing a much closer race that will be largely decided by Northern battlegrounds.

Biden isn't visiting Georgia himself in the final days of the race. But his campaign has dispatched its top surrogates to the state, including Obama's visit to Atlanta, where he campaigned with Democratic Senate candidates.

Obama told the crowd he hadn't originally planned to come to the state, but he said he was told Georgia "could be the place where we put this country back on track."

He hammered Trump for suggesting Sunday night that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious diseases expert, after the election.

"One of the few people in this administration who's been taking this seriously all along, and what'd he say? His second term plan is to fire that guy," Obama said. "I mean, they've already said they're not going to contain the pandemic. Now they want to fire the one person who could actually help them contain the pandemic."

Obama's visit followed Biden's running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, visiting in Georgia on Sunday.

Harris campaigned alongside Stacey Abrams, the former gubernatorial nominee who has been at the center of Democrats' effort to expand the party's electorate there.

"All that we are looking to now in terms of Georgia and the prospect of what we might accomplish in this state, in large part, we have to say thank you Stacey Abrams for the work you have done," Harris said.

She sought to motivate Democratic voters there by pointing to the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died this year, saying voters must "honor their ancestors" as she lambasted Trump's long history of racist comments and actions.

"It's not like it's a one-off. Don't forget when he was running for office and thinking about his political career, he had the gall to question the legitimacy of America's first Black president," Harris said of Trump, referring to his racist birther attacks on Obama.

Trump, meanwhile, visited Rome, Georgia, on Sunday night, delivering his stump speech and making clear he expects to win the state for a second time Tuesday. His presence in the state just days before the election underscored Republican concerns that Democrats could flip the state.

"I shouldn't even be here. They say I have Georgia made," Trump said.

Four years ago, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points in Georgia, a result that showed a state Republicans have dominated for more than two decades was becoming competitive.

But since then, Georgia has proved an elusive target for Democrats. In a 2017 special election for a House seat in the Atlanta suburbs, first-time candidate Jon Ossoff shattered fundraising records with a nearly $30 million haul -- a harbinger for the massive totals Democrats would raise over the next four years -- but fell short against Republican Karen Handel.

Handel then lost the seat to Democrat Lucy McBath in the 2018 midterm elections. But Democrats lost the biggest price: the governor's office, with former state House Democratic leader Abrams, who was seen as a generational rising star in the state's party, losing to Republican Brian Kemp in a close race, amid complaints that Kemp had mismanaged the state's election system in his post as secretary of state.

It was a frustrating blow and the latest in a long series of losses for Georgia Democrats. The party hasn't won major statewide races in Georgia in two decades: Bill Clinton was the party's last presidential candidate to carry the state in 1992; Democrats last won a governor's race in 1998 and a Senate race there in 2000, in a special election.

Still, its rapidly diversifying population and the suburban shift in Democrats' favor nationwide has made Georgia an attractive target.

Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said the state's evolution from 2016 -- with a network of female activists engaging starting in the 2017 House special election, through Abrams' party-building in 2018, and protests over racial injustice in 2020 -- has built the moment party loyalists there have been waiting for.

"It's that perfect opportunity where people are still active and engaged, and the women who were activated after the 2016 election never left the party; never left their activism, and have continued to build at this date. ... Everything coming together in this pivotal moment," Williams said. "Georgia is ready to flip right now, because of all of the work that has happened."

In addition to Georgia's 16 electoral votes at stake in the presidential race, Democrats are closely watching two Senate races in Georgia: Ossoff's challenge to Republican Sen. David Perdue, and a special election in which Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock faces several opponents, including incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. If no candidate crosses the 50% threshold, one or both Senate races could then move to a runoff election featuring the top two finishers.

Obama also criticized Perdue and Loeffler, the two Republican incumbent senators.

"Your two senators publicly were telling you that the virus would be no big deal. But behind closed doors, they were making a bunch of moves in the stock market to try to make sure their portfolios were protected instead of making sure you were protected. Man, that's shady," Obama said.

Obama called Loeffler and Perdue "the dynamic duo of doing wrong" and said "Georgia was definitely not on their mind."

If election night goes perfectly for Georgia Democrats, they also have a shot at flipping enough seats to take control of the state House of Representatives. Such a win could pay dividends on the national and state levels for a decade, because it would give Democrats a seat at the table when the legislature redraws congressional and state legislative district lines next year during the once-a-decade redistricting process.

Democrats have also turned Georgia into a costly state for the GOP to defend: Biden and the Democratic National Committee have spent more than $10 million on television ads in Georgia. Trump and the Republican National Committee, meanwhile, have spent more than $23 million on ads there.

Biden chose Warm Springs, Georgia -- the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Little White House," where he recovered from polio -- to deliver what his campaign characterized as his final argument in the 2020 race last Tuesday.

The speech underscored how -- even as the coronavirus pandemic has upended the campaign and American life -- Biden's central message has largely remained unchanged since he launched his campaign in April 2019, criticizing Trump on moral grounds.

"I believe this election is about who we are as a nation, what we believe, and maybe most importantly, who we want to be. It's about our essence; it's about what makes us Americans. It's that fundamental," Biden said.

This story has been updated with Obama's remarks in Atlanta.

CNN's Jasmine Wright contributed to this report.

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Obama heads to Georgia as Democrats seek breakthrough that has eluded them in Trump era - CNN

Following the official announcement that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won the 2020 presidential election, former First Lady Michelle Obama paid tribute to Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris's run. Obama shared a post of Harris and Biden on her Instagram, recognizing Harris's history-making run as the first Black and Indian woman to run as vice president on a major political party's ticket in the U.S.

"I'm beyond thrilled that my friend Joe Biden and our first Black and Indian-American woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, are headed to restore some dignity, competence, and heart at the White House. Our country sorely needs it. Thank you to all of you who poured every ounce of your hope and determination into this democracy over these past four years, registering voters, getting them to the polls, keeping folks informed. More votes were cast in this election than ever before. It's because of you. And after we celebrate and we should all take a moment to exhale after everything weve been throughlet's remember that this is just a beginning. Its a first step. Voting in one election isnt a magic wand, and neither is winning one. Let's remember that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division. Weve got a lot of work to do to reach out to these folks in the years ahead and connect with them on what unites us. But we've also got to recognize that the path to progress will always be uphill. Well always have to scrape and crawl up toward that mountaintop. And two years from now, four years from now, there will once again be no margin for error. We see now the reality that we cant take even the tiniest part of our democracy for granted. Every single vote must count and every single one of us must vote. And as a country, we should be making it easier, not harder to cast a ballot. So it's up to us to stay engaged and informed, to keep speaking out and marching on. Weve got to vote in even greater numbers in the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia and every state and local election going forward. Weve got to promise each other that our focus in this election wont be an anomaly, but the rule. That's how we can not only feel this way right now, but in the months and years ahead. Its the only way well build a nation worthy of our children. My warmest congratulations again to Joe and Jill, Kamala and Doug and each of you who stepped up when your country needed you."

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Obama previously celebrated Harris being named Biden's VP pick on her Instagram in August. Obama wrote:

Change can be slow and frustrating, but signs of progress are all around us. This week Senator @KamalaHarris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, became the first Black woman and first Asian-American woman on a major partys presidential ticket. Ive been thinking about all those girls growing up today who will be able to take it for granted that someone who looks like them can grow up to lead a nation like ours. Because @KamalaHarris may be the first, but she wont be the last.

I am here for it all. Let us embrace and celebrate this moment. Go get em girl.

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Former president Barack Obama celebrated his former vice president's win with the following post:

"I could not be prouder to congratulate our next President, Joe Biden, and our next First Lady, Jill Biden. I also couldnt be prouder to congratulate Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff for Kamalas groundbreaking election as our next Vice President. In this election, under circumstances never experienced, Americans turned out in numbers never seen. And once every vote is counted, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will have won a historic and decisive victory. Were fortunate that Joes got what it takes to be President and already carries himself that way. Because when he walks into the White House in January, hell face a series of extraordinary challenges no incoming President ever has a raging pandemic, an unequal economy and justice system, a democracy at risk, and a climate in peril. I know hell do the job with the best interests of every American at heart, whether or not he had their vote. So I encourage every American to give him a chance and lend him your support. The election results at every level show that the country remains deeply and bitterly divided. It will be up to not just Joe and Kamala, but each of us, to do our part to reach out beyond our comfort zone, to listen to others, to lower the temperature and find some common ground from which to move forward, all of us remembering that we are one nation, under God. Finally, I want to thank everyone who worked, organized, and volunteered for the Biden campaign, every American who got involved in their own way, and everybody who voted for the first time. Your efforts made a difference. Enjoy this moment. Then stay engaged. I know it can be exhausting. But for this democracy to endure, it requires our active citizenship and sustained focus on the issues not just in an election season, but all the days in between. Our democracy needs all of us more than ever. And Michelle and I look forward to supporting our next President and First Lady however we can."

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The bromance is back, people.

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Michelle Obama Pays Tribute to the 'First Black and Indian-American Woman Vice President, Kamala Harris' - ELLE.com