Less than an hour after Joe Biden's decision to withdraw, Democrats began to rally around Kamala Harris as the party's new presidential nominee in 2024.
As the US vice-president seeks to become the first woman to hold the country's highest office, her campaign has re-energised liberal voters and raised a record $671 million in donations over the past two months - almost three times more than her Republican rival Donald Trump managed to raise.
But her path to the top of the list has been unique, difficult and fraught with curious questions. Here's a look at Harris's career, the events that have shaped her life, and how she became the first black woman candidate for president.
How Kamala rose to vice president
Harris first stepped into the ring of politics 5 years ago.
She began her career as district attorney - or senior prosecutor - for Alameda County, and from 2004 to 2011 for the city of San Francisco.
Her next promotion was as California's attorney general, becoming the first woman and first black elected to the top legal post in America's most populous state.
She used that momentum to run successfully in 2016 to become California's next U.S. senator, from where she caused a stir with her prosecutorial style in committee hearings.
But the 2020 presidential bid failed as Harris struggled to articulate his ideology and political platform.
Her campaign was over in less than a year, and it was Biden who brought the 59-year-old Harris back under the national spotlight by bringing her onto his team.
Gil Duran, Harris's former communications director, called it "a great twist of fate."
"A lot of people didn't think she had the discipline and focus to rise to a position in the White House so quickly ... even though people knew she had ambition and star potential. It was always clear that she had raw talent," Duran said.
Harris focused on several key initiatives while in the White House, and contributed to many of the Biden administration's most touted accomplishments.
She helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided stimulus payments for the economy from the time of Obamacare-19 and other relief.
Biden also tapped Harris to lead efforts to address the root causes of migration amid a record influx of undocumented migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
This is an issue on which her opponents point out that she has not made enough progress. Harris has been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for taking six months after taking office to plan a trip to the border.
In recent times, Harris has been the administration's go-to person for highlighting the damage caused by abortion bans once 2022 rolls around. The Supreme Court overturned the decision in Roe v. Wade, a half-century of precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion.
The battle over reproductive rights took center stage at the Democratic Party's convention in August, fitting right in with the broader animating message: freedom.
In her Democratic convention keynote, the biggest speech of her career, Harris identified Trump and Republicans as the architects of the unpopular effort to restrict abortion access across the country.
"Simply put, they've lost their minds," she said, vowing to restore the protections provided by Roe.
Harris is trying to present herself in a good light to moderate voters, as some polls show many consider Trump closer to the center of the political spectrum.
During the 2020 campaign, she touted left-leaning biases on immigration, LGBT rights and other issues, but faced repeated attacks over her prosecutorial past.
Four years later, Harris is portraying herself as a cop who will take on a convicted felon in the person of Trump.
But she also promises to implement a progressive agenda that will uplift middle-class families like her own.
"In my entire career, I've only had one client: the people," the vice president says.
The roots of Kamala Harris
Harris was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents: a mother born in India and a father born in Jamaica.
Her parents divorced when she was five, and she was raised primarily by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist.
Harris often talks about the lessons her mother gave her daughters.
"She was tough, courageous, a pioneer in the fight for women's health. She taught us never to complain about injustice, but to do something about it," the vice president says.
Harris grew up with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India, but said her mother immersed both her and her younger sister Maya in Oakland's black culture.
"My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters," Harris wrote in her autobiography.
"She knew that her adopted homeland would see in Maya and me black girls, and she was determined to make sure that we would grow up as confident and proud black women," Harris writes.
Her biracial roots and upbringing could make it easier for her to engage and appeal to many Americans. Areas of the country with rapidly changing demographics - large enough to change the politics of a region - see her as a symbol of diversity.
But it was her time spent at Howard University, one of the most significant historically black colleges and universities in the country, that she describes as one of the most formative experiences of her life.
Lita Rosario-Richardson met Kamala Harris during her time at Howard in the 1980s, when students gathered on campus to party and discuss politics, fashion and gossip.
"I noticed she had a keen sense of argument," she says.
The vice president says she always felt comfortable with her identity and simply defined herself as "American."
In 2019, she told the Washington Post that politicians shouldn't fit into rigid boxes because of the color of their skin or their background.
"My perspective is: I am who I am," she said.
The creation of the witty Kamala from the "debate club"
Right from the start, as her friend Rosario-Richardson confirms, Harris displayed the skills that allow her to be one of the few women to overcome the barriers of prejudice.
"That's what drew me to have her join the debate team [at Howard University], the fearlessness," she explained.
Wit and humour are part of the picture. In a video posted to her social media in 2020 after winning the election, Harris shares the news of the victory - with a very genuine laugh - with Biden: "We did it, we did it, Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States!"
The laughter she shares with the then-president-elect as they have their first important phone conversation is a laugh her friend recognizes immediately.
"She's always laughed, and she's always had a sense of humor, a wit - even in the context of university debates - to make her points," Rosario-Richardston explained.
Kamala's family, "Mamala"
In 2014, then-Sen. Harris married attorney Doug Emhoff and became a stepmother to his two children, Cole and Ella.
In 2019, she wrote an article for Elle magazine about the experience and revealed her nickname, which began to dominate many media headlines thereafter.
"When Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella and I agreed that we didn't like the term stepmom. Instead, they came up with the name "Mamala." | BGNES
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Analysis by Rachel Luker and Holly Honderich for the BBC
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