Senator Kamala Harris announces she will run for US presidential campaign in 2020

Washington, Jan 21: Kamala Harris, a first-term senator and former California attorney general known for her rigorous questioning of President Donald Trump's nominees, entered the Democratic presidential race on Monday.

Vowing to "bring our voices together," Harris would be the first woman to hold the presidency and the second African-American if she succeeds.

Harris, 54, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, enters the race with the potential advantage of being the Democratic candidate who looks most like the party's increasingly diverse base of young, female and minority voters.

The announcement falls on the U.S. Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday honouring the slain civil rights leader, and the day was selected as a reminder of the aspirational fight for progress, an aide said.

Harris, who made history in 2016 as the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate from California, has embraced the party's diversity ahead of a Democratic nominating campaign where minority voters and liberal activists are expected to have an outsized voice.