Kamala Harris sets sights on U.S. Senate

California Attorney General and former San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris announced Tuesday morning she is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Harris posted a statement on her website www.kamalaharris.org this morning announcing the launch of her campaign, which comes less than a week after Sen. Barbara Boxer announced she would not seek re-election in 2016:

“I will be a fighter for the next generation on the critical issues facing our country. I will be a fighter for middle class families who are feeling the pinch of stagnant wages and diminishing opportunity.”

Harris added:

“I will be a fighter for our children who deserve a world-class education, and for students burdened by predatory lenders and skyrocketing tuition. And I will fight relentlessly to protect our coast, our immigrant communities and our seniors.”

Harris thanked the “transformational leadership” of Boxer, who is serving her fourth six-year term in the Senate and came to Congress from the Bay Area. Boxer started her career in public office on the Marin County Board of Supervisors.

Harris, who was born in Oakland and received her law degree from University of California Hastings College of the Law, started her career as a prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office and moved across the Bay to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office in 1998.

She was elected as The City’s district attorney in 2003 and re-elected in 2007 before winning the state attorney general seat in the 2010 election and again last November.

Another San Francisco politician who was rumored to seek Boxer’s seat, former Mayor and current Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced on Facebook Monday that he will not run for Senate:

“I know that my head and my heart, my young family’s future, and our unfinished work all remain firmly in the State of California — not Washington, D.C. … In the months to come, I look forward to doing whatever I can to help elect California’s next great Democratic Senator — one worthy of succeeding Barbara Boxer and serving this remarkable state of dreamers and doers.”