How Beau Biden Set the Stage For Kamala Harris’ Stunning Political Rise

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There were days the pair talked to each other more than they spoke to the people who slept under their roofs. 

Kamala Harris was the state attorney general of California and Beau Biden was in the same role over in Delaware, where so many of the banks she was fighting were based. At the height of the clean-up from the 2008 financial crisis, more than a million California households caught up in the foreclosure wave were struggling to stay in their homes. For Harris to help any of them, she needed backup from Biden, who had oversight over Wilmington, Del., the banking industry's stealth capital. That partnership helped Harris emerge as one of the only political leaders in the country seen as holding bankers accountable for predatory practices.

Beau Biden had Harris’ flank until the end of his too-brief life, which ended in 2015 at age 46. Five years later, the man Beau called “Pop” tapped Harris as his running mate, creating one of the most unlikely partnerships in Democratic politics. And when President Joe Biden decided to forgo the nomination this year and clear the way for Harris, it was the dividend on an accidental alliance forged in the early 2010s when two rising stars of the Democratic Party aligned and, to the point it’s become canon, actually became sincere friends.

Beau Biden was atop Harris’ mind last month when she accepted the elder Biden’s endorsement to be the next President. “I first came to know President Biden through his son, Beau. We were friends from our days working together as attorneys general of our home states,” Harris said. “The qualities Beau revered in his father are the same qualities, the same values, I have seen every single day in Joe’s leadership as President.”

Trite? Sure. But it has the benefit of also happening to be true.

Up until Beau Biden’s death, Joe Biden long believed his son had the potential to surpass his own impressive political career. So when the elder Biden tapped Harris four years ago this month, it was in no small measure based on her true friendship with the younger Biden. As I wrote at the time, one question hung over his deliberation more than any other: What Would Beau Do? That’s how Biden got to yes on Harris, despite his primary rivalry with her and a skepticism that she actually believed in the vision for America she was pitching in her own White House run. 

“I first met Kamala through my son Beau,” Biden said during his roll-out of Harris. “He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made this decision. There is no one’s opinion I valued more than Beau’s, and I’m proud to have Kamala standing with me on this campaign.”

Four years later, Joe Biden stood aside to give Harris her best shot to date at winning the top job in global politics. In ways great and small, it was a moment set up by Beau Biden, who in the aughts connected with his colleague in California and decided they’d be great partners—and, perhaps, the future of their shared Democratic Party. One succumbed to brain cancer and the other is currently leading Donald Trump in most national polls. What started as a check on banking overreach now stands to be the driving force behind Democratic politics. And, from the outside, it looks like a not entirely bad level of match-making.

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