Kamala Harris is tough, impatient, and disciplined. And a person who loves to work.
She's not out to be liked, but wants to be respected for doing a good job, says Catherine Zinn, who was the fundraising chief for the Democrats' future presidential candidate.
It was like the phone exploded. When President Joe Biden suddenly announced that he wouldn't run for re-election and instead endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, the messages started pouring in for Catherine Zinn.
I was thrilled in a way I hadn't been in a long time. I thought back to that day in 2019 when we went to Oakland to launch her (first) presidential campaign, she recounts over the phone from her hometown of San Francisco.
Principled
Catherine Zinn is a businesswoman and heavyweight in the Democrats' inner circles and is part of Harris' circle of friends. By day, she works at the law firm Baker Botts, but through her network among Silicon Valley's often wealthy entrepreneurs, she has specialized in raising money for the party's top candidates. Zinn was active in Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign and in Barack Obama's two bids for the White House. At the same time, she got to know Kamala Harris, who was then the district attorney in San Francisco and later became California's top legal officer.
Even back then, she was tough, well-respected, and effective, Zinn recounts.
The word that best describes her is principled. As a prosecutor, she took on big players in the financial world when she suspected something wasn't right. That didn't always make her popular.
Impatience and departures
Catherine Zinn was involved in raising money for Harris' previous campaigns and expects to work during the fall election campaign. Zinn says she's convinced that the US is ready for a female president with an immigrant background.
We did, after all, welcome Obama with open arms. And Nikki Haley did pretty well against Donald Trump.
What does she want to say about Harris?
First and foremost, that she has an exceptional legal mind. She's smart and disciplined and loves to work.
And she has an introverted side. She'd rather have a deep conversation than mingle. She's careful about lifting people around her.
Despite this, several media outlets have published reports of staff conflicts and that employees in Harris' staff have quit. Zinn says she's not surprised.
She's impatient and wants quick results. And she expects her colleagues to be the same. Impatience is a character trait she needs to work on handling.
Not the first
Harris' previous bid for the White House lasted barely a year but is an important experience. This presidential campaign is not her first.
Her challenge now is to trust her own instincts. At her level, it's easy to get talked over by advisors.
59-year-old Kamala Harris has been Joe Biden's Vice President since January 2021. The two have a close working relationship, and Biden supports Harris as the Democrats' next presidential candidate.
Harris' father is from Jamaica, and her mother was from India, but she was born in Oakland in northern California. After living in Canada and studying at Howard University in Washington DC, she returned to her home state to work as a lawyer and prosecutor. In 2004, she became the district attorney in San Francisco.
In 2011, she was appointed California's top legal officer (attorney general), a post she held until she was elected to the US Senate in 2016. Then, she became the second black woman in the chamber.
Harris ran her own presidential campaign in 2019 before throwing in the towel and backing Joe Biden.
Is married to lawyer Doug Emhoff since 2014. Has no children of her own, but has said that Emhoff's children from a previous marriage call her "Momala". Enjoys cooking and usually gets on the cross-trainer early in the morning.
