Is America finally ready to pick its first female president?

With President Joe Biden choosing not to seek reelection, Vice President Kamala Harris can shape the U.S. presidency for future generations  

Vice President Kamala Harris is not the first woman to run for president of the United States. That distinction belongs to Victoria Claflin Woodhull, who made her run as a candidate for the Oval Office back in 1872. 

As a woman of color, Harris does not own the mantle of being the first Black woman to run for the presidency. That benchmark belongs to Shirley Chisholm, who climbed that mountain in 1972. With her impending nomination from the Democratic Party just waiting to become official, Harris also would not be the first female to earn the nomination from a major political party. 

Hilary Clinton snagged that honor in 2020 when she ran and lost out on the presidency to Donald Trump.   

But Harris now has the opportunity to do something of historic proportions. The former U.S. senator can become the first woman and woman of color to become president of the United States if she receives the Democratic Party’s nomination and beats Trump in the presidential election in November.    

This may be a tall order, but the idea that this country may be closer to picking a woman as president is getting closer and closer to reality. It’s about time that America has a woman as president. And why not? 

Women run corporate boardrooms. They are attorneys. They are education leaders. They are media giants. One of the few glass ceilings that has not been cracked is the office of the presidency, where no woman has been elected into office. Harris has the chance to change that narrative.   

Or she can be a two-time loser at trying to make a second run at the Oval Office. It’s boom or bust for Harris just like it is for the country as a whole. In a bombshell announcement a month out from the Democratic National Convention, President Joe Biden has opted to take himself out of the presidential election. 

In stepping down as commander-in-chief, Biden has given Harris the pathway to do something that has never been done and that is for the country to have a woman president. It’s way too early to try to make plans for any inaugural swearing-in ceremony for Harris. 

However, the buzz around the news that Harris will be the Democratic Party’s potential nominee has sparked a lot of enthusiasm among the base and presents Trump with a new campaign strategy challenge. 

Instead of going up against a feeble Biden, who dumped on the Democratic Party with his infamous disastrous presidential debate early this summer, Trump must now prepare to match wits with a seasoned prosecutor in Harris. Harris was California’s top cop as the state’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. 

She was then elected to the U.S. Senate, where she served from 2017 until 2021. Harris made her first attempt to run for the presidency in 2020 when she eventually bowed out of the race. Biden went on to win the Democratic Party’s nomination and then went on to whoop Trump to become president No. 46. 

And now the country is in turmoil. A weakened president in Biden opting to forgo reelection can be a positive or negative, depending on one’s perspective. Trump’s wrap for the presidency just got a lot more complicated and very much unpredictable. No one knows what’s going to happen. 

Not even Trump and the Republication know what to expect. That sense of unfiltered smug arrogance shown by the Republican Party has now turned into concern and possibly despair.  

For a while, it appeared the Republicans would have an easy road back to the White House with Biden way behind in the polls. Now that the presidential earthquake has dropped, Trump and the Republican Party are in scramble shock. 

As a skilled prosecutor, Harris will come at Trump in a way Biden could not do. Trump was convicted of 34 felonies this summer by a jury. Biden handily beat Trump in their debates and at the polls in 2020. What a difference four years make. 

Biden could not even step on the track toward reelection this time around. Expect Harris to meet the moment. This is her time to do something remarkable. Or she can pack it in politically as a two-time presidential election loser. 

But with the country in a tug-of-war around abortion and women’s rights, Harris may now find her political voice.