Kamala Harris Trivia
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48 free Kamala Harris trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland to a Tamil biomedical scientist and a Jamaican economist, finished high school in Montreal, pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha at Howard, and prosecuted homicides in Alameda County before becoming the first woman, first African American and first Asian American vice president of the United States. She cast more tie-breaking votes than any vice president in history, ran the country for 85 minutes during a colonoscopy, and led the shortest major-party presidential campaign in modern times. This Kamala Harris trivia quiz runs 48 questions across her life and career: Shyamala and Donald, Berkeley and Westmount High, Vanier College and Howard, Hastings law school, Willie Brown, Terence Hallinan and the 2003 DA race, the death-penalty pledge, truancy citations, the Homeowner Bill of Rights, the 2016 Senate win over Loretta Sanchez, the Sessions, Kavanaugh and Barr hearings, the 2019 campaign and the busing debate, Biden's pick, tie-breaking records, the Root Causes Strategy, the 2024 nomination and Tim Walz, the Trump debate, the loss, Doug Emhoff, Cole and Ella, the coconut tree, and 107 Days. Easy questions come first; the last third is for people who remember Ronald Gold. Every answer is verified against Wikipedia's biography of Harris, with the supporting sentence quoted under each question. Fans of this quiz should also try our vice presidents and Joe Biden quizzes.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In July 2025, Harris ended months of speculation by ruling out a 2026 run for which office?
Governor of California
Governor of California. She had been the heavy favourite for the 2026 race, but said her public service would not be in elected office 'for now', which left a 2028 presidential run open.
Q 02Harris was born in 1964 in which California city?
Oakland
Oakland. She came back to launch her first presidential campaign there, in a downtown plaza, before a crowd police put at more than 20,000.
Q 03Harris's mother Shyamala Gopalan came to the U.S. from India in 1958 to study which subject at Berkeley?
Endocrinology
Endocrinology. She arrived at 19, earned her PhD in 1964, the year Kamala was born, and broke with her family's custom of arranged matches by marrying for love.
Q 04Donald Harris, Kamala Harris's father, was the first Black scholar tenured in which university's economics department?
Stanford
Stanford. He had come from Jamaica in 1961 as a Berkeley graduate student, and met Kamala's mother there through the civil rights movement.
Q 05As a child Harris often visited her maternal grandfather in which Indian city?
Chennai
Chennai. Her grandfather, a retired civil servant, took her along on his walks with old colleagues, and she has credited their arguments about democracy and corruption with shaping her.
Q 06Harris graduated from high school in 1981 in which city?
Montreal
Montreal. Her mother took a research job at McGill when Harris was 12, so she finished at Westmount High, where she started a dance troupe with a friend.
Q 07Harris earned her undergraduate degree at which historically Black institution?
Howard
Howard. On its Washington, D.C. campus she was elected to the liberal arts student council, joined the debate team and protested against apartheid.
Q 08Harris joined which "Divine Nine" sorority as an undergraduate?
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha. Its members have included the three NASA mathematicians of Hidden Figures, and Divine Nine members began organising behind Harris's 2024 run within days of its launch.
Q 09Harris earned her law degree in 1989 from which Bay Area school?
UC Hastings
UC Hastings. The school dropped the name in 2023 after confirming that its founder, Serranus Hastings, had bankrolled killings of Yuki people in the 1850s.
Q 10Harris began her legal career in 1990 as a deputy district attorney in which California county?
Alameda
Alameda. At her first trial there she introduced herself as 'Kamala Harris, for the people', and those last three words became her 2020 campaign slogan.
Q 11Which California Assembly Speaker, whom Harris dated in the 1990s, appointed her to two state boards?
Willie Brown
Willie Brown. When her 2019 presidential run revived the story, the former San Francisco mayor answered in a newspaper column headed 'Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?'
Q 12At her 2021 swearing-in, Harris laid her hand on a Bible that had belonged to which Supreme Court justice?
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall. Harris has named the first Black justice among the heroes who drew her to the law; the other Bible had belonged to Regina Shelton, a family friend she saw as a second mother.
Q 13As DA, Harris kept a campaign pledge never to seek what, even after a police officer was killed in 2004?
Q 21Harris announced her first presidential campaign in 2019 on which federal holiday?
MLK Day
MLK Day. She chose it deliberately, and her logo borrowed the colours and lettering of Shirley Chisholm's 1972 run, launched almost exactly 47 years earlier.
Q 22In a June 2019 debate, Harris confronted Biden over his 1970s opposition to what?
School busing
School busing. 'That little girl was me,' she said, after describing a California child bused each day as part of the second class to integrate her public schools.
Q 23Harris withdrew from the 2020 presidential race in December 2019 citing what?
A shortage of funds
The death penalty
The death penalty. Senator Dianne Feinstein used Officer Isaac Espinoza's funeral to call for it, inflaming police already unhappy with the new prosecutor, but Harris held to her pledge.
Q 14In 2008 Harris's office became the first in San Francisco to prosecute parents over what?
Their children's truancy
Their children's truancy. She called chronic absence a public-safety problem, arguing that most prison inmates and murder victims had been dropouts or habitual truants; no parent was jailed.
Q 15Harris's 2009 book on criminal justice is titled what 'on Crime'?
Smart
Smart. Sworn in as San Francisco's top prosecutor in 2004, she asked the city to stop arguing over 'tough on crime or soft on crime' and be 'smart on crime' instead.
Q 16Which future opponent donated $6,000 to Harris's 2014 re-election campaign for attorney general?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump. He gave $5,000 in 2011 and $1,000 in 2013, but Harris didn't keep it: in 2015 she passed the money to a nonprofit that advocates for Central Americans' civil rights.
Q 17As attorney general, Harris created which set of protections against aggressive foreclosure practices?
Homeowner Bill of Rights
Homeowner Bill of Rights. It barred banks from foreclosing while still negotiating a loan change, and followed her walking out of settlement talks until the big lenders raised their offer to California.
Q 18Harris won her 2016 U.S. Senate race against which fellow Democrat?
Loretta Sanchez
Loretta Sanchez. California's top-two primary sent two Democrats to the final, the first time since the state began electing senators directly that no Republican made the November ballot.
Q 19Whose retirement opened the California Senate seat Harris won in 2016?
Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer. When she said she would not run again after more than 20 years in the Senate, Harris declared for the seat within days, while other leading Democrats were still weighing bids.
Q 20Harris gained national attention in 2018 by questioning which Supreme Court nominee about the Mueller investigation?
Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh. She asked whether he had discussed the inquiry with anyone at the law firm founded by the president's personal lawyer; he could not give a clear answer and kept deflecting.
A shortage of funds. She had raised $1.5 million in her first 24 hours as a candidate, yet by December told supporters the campaign no longer had the money to carry on.
Q 24Harris was the third woman nominated for vice president by a major party, after Sarah Palin and whom?
Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Ferraro. Walter Mondale's 1984 running mate lost in a landslide and Palin's ticket lost too, so Harris became the first of the three to win the office.
Q 25Whose record for most tie-breaking votes by a vice president did Harris break in December 2023?
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun. He cast 31 as vice president between 1825 and 1832, a mark that stood for almost 200 years; Harris, helped by a Senate split 50–50 in her first two years, passed it in under three.
Q 26For 85 minutes on November 19, 2021, Harris was acting president while Biden underwent what?
A colonoscopy
A colonoscopy. Because Biden was under anaesthetic he formally handed over his powers, and Harris, the first woman ever to hold them, spent the time working in her West Wing office.
Q 27Biden assigned Harris in March 2021 to address the root causes of migration from Mexico and which region?
The Northern Triangle
The Northern Triangle. That means El Salvador and two neighbours; the job was diplomacy over why people leave, not policing the frontier, so she rejected the 'border czar' label opponents gave her.
Q 28Harris's first foreign trip as vice president, in June 2021, took her to Mexico and which other country?
Guatemala
Guatemala. Standing beside its president, she told would-be migrants bluntly, 'Do not come', warning that the journey north was dangerous and mostly enriched smugglers.
Q 29Whom did Harris pick as her running mate in August 2024?
Tim Walz
Tim Walz. The Minnesota governor had risen fast up the shortlist, credited with first calling the Republican ticket 'weird', a label Democrats quickly made their own.
Q 30Which pop star endorsed Harris immediately after the September 2024 debate?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift. She signed her Instagram post 'Childless Cat Lady', turning a jibe that the Republican vice-presidential nominee had aimed at Democrats into her sign-off.