The story of Kamala Harris and the hunt for Joe Biden's running mate felt like it ended on a debate stage in Miami, when the California senator came for Biden with her tightly workshopped "That little girl was me" moment. 

Now here we are with Kamala Harris as the first Black and Asian American woman to run for vice president, joining presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s ticket. 

The journey from their debate contention to this moment took shape after Harris’s own presidential aspirations fizzled. Harris took steps toward redemption by energetically endorsing and campaigning for Biden, and her stock in the Veepstakes rose as Biden pledged to choose a woman running mate, and calls within the party intensified for Biden to meet the moment of civil unrest by choosing a Black woman at that.   

Those calls elevated a number of women candidates in the conversation, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Florida Rep. Val Demmings, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and California Rep. Karen Bass. 

The reasons Biden chose Harris perhaps are best illustrated in the widely circulated photo showing Biden clutching talking points on a list titled “Kamala Harris,” which included “Do not hold a grudge” and “Great help to the campaign.”  

Harris is a formidable national figure, a fund-raising juggernaut, and, of course, a memorable debater—with experience as a prosecutor, California’s Attorney General, and time in the U.S. Senate, all of which situate her well for a national campaign of debates and prosecuting the Biden campaign’s case against President Donald Trump and VP Mike Pence. 

And yet, in this political climate, Kamala Harris's name recognition could also be a liability, giving President Trump lines of attack on the Biden-Harris ticket's appeal to progressive and Black voters—from that debate moment on busing, to Harris's record as California's attorney general, and her reticence to get involved in prosecutions against police. 

Maybe the most frequent and hushed critique from Biden insiders is that Harris is simply too "ambitious," to which Harris seemed to reference at an online Black Girls Lead 2020 conference the other day. 

"There will be resistance to your ambition, there will be those who tell you to stay in your lane," Harris advised the young women during the public Zoom conference.

Harris shows that her selection as running mate is not just a breakthrough moment but a choice that honors one woman’s historic ambition.