20,000 people attend Kamala Harris 2020 campaign kickoff

(Image credit: Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images)

published 28 January 2019

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was greeted by a huge crowd Sunday in her hometown of Oakland, as she officially launched her presidential campaign.

A former prosecutor and state attorney general, Harris said her "whole life, I've only had one client: the people," and gave a rundown of the issues she is focusing on: Medicare for All, criminal justice reform, giving working families an income boost, and climate change. The U.S. needs to act "on science fact," she said. "Not science fiction." Harris also said American democracy is under attack "like never before," and divisions run deep. "People are trying to convince us that the villain in our American story is each other," she said. "But that is not our story. That is not who we are."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.