With Biden Out, Vice President Kamala Harris Has a Chance to Make History Again

President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to be the new Democratic nominee gives Ms. Harris, already the first woman and person of color to be vice president, another opportunity to make history.

In a letter announcing his withdrawal, Mr. Biden offered his thanks to Ms. Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.” He endorsed her in a separate post on social media that included a photo of the two of them on the White House grounds.

“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he wrote in the post.

Before she was chosen as his running mate, Ms. Harris had clashed with Mr. Biden during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign. Mr. Biden vowed during that race to pick a woman as his vice-presidential candidate, as well as someone with experience and who would be “simpatico with me, both in terms of personality as well as substance,” he said. Earlier in her career, Ms. Harris had served as a senator representing California and the state’s state attorney general.

In speeches and event appearances, Ms. Harris, who has long been seen as the embodiment of a country growing more racially and ethnically diverse, has often nodded to her mother and the generations of women of all races who paved the way for someone like her. Her selection as vice president was also seen as an acknowledgment of the critical role Black women have played in Democratic victories since 2016.

Just this month at the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Ms. Harris cut a striking figure, appearing confident and clad in an electric blue suit, as she talked up the