Washington, California Senator Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, was considering backing former Vice President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary, a media report said.
The Hill news magazine reported citing multiple Democratic officials familiar with the Harris’s deliberations as saying to The New York Times on Thursday that she was weighing the option of backing her former primary opponent.
The officials told the Times the potential endorsement would not be likely until after President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial that kicked off this week.
Harris’s spokesman Chris Harris told the New York Times that the Senator “remains focused on the ongoing impeachment trial”.
“No decisions have been made about whether she will endorse, which candidate, nor when an endorsement decision will be made,” he said.
Biden has praised Harris since she ended her presidential campaign in early December, despite some tense moments between the two earlier in the primary.
Shortly after she dropped out, he told reporters “of course” he would consider the Senator as a running mate, The Hill said in its report.
“She is solid. She can be President someday herself. She can be the vice president. She can go on to be a Supreme Court justice. She can be an attorney general. She has enormous capability,” Biden added.
Harris, the first Indian-American in the Senate, ended her bid for the White House on December 3, 2019, after faltering poll numbers and fund-raising efforts, India-West said in a report.
Once thought to be the obvious choice for Democratic nominee, Harris’s campaign failed to gain traction with both the Indian-American and the African-American community.