Image source, Reuters

That concludes our coverage of this history-making vice-presidential pick - thanks for joining us.

California Senator Kamala Harris will join Joe Biden, a former vice-president himself, on the 2020 ticket for the Democrats.

She's the first black woman and Asian-American woman to become a presidential running mate for a major US political party.

Her selection has been met with praise from top Democrats, though some left-leaning members of the party have expressed concerns over her past as a prosecutor.

We're expecting to hear from Biden and Harris at an event tomorrow.

The Biden-Harris team will face President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, on 3 November.

You can follow updates to the story of the Biden-Harris ticket here.

Want more? Check out these features on Kamala Harris and the US election.

• Who is Kamala Harris?
• Watch: A VP pick that breaks barriers
• Why Kamala Harris embraces her biracial roots

Sarah Palin - the former Republican Alaska governor picked as John McCain's running mate in 2008 - has offered some words of advice to Kamala Harris.

"Climb upon Geraldine Ferraro's and my shoulders," Palin wrote on Instagram - referring to Geraldine Ferraro, America's first female vice-presidential nominee back in 1984. Harris now joins Ferraro and Palin as member's of a three-person club: the only female vice-presidential nominees of a major American political party.

"Out of the chute trust no one new," Palin wrote. "Don't get muzzled - connect with media and voters in your own unique way. Some yahoos running campaigns will suffocate you with their own self-centred agenda so remember YOU were chosen for who YOU are."

And "don't forget the women who came before you".

On a day like today, many may ask how the two presidential candidates are doing as we inch closer to election day, 3 November 2020.

National polls are a good guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, but they're not necessarily a good way to predict the result of the election.

In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton led in the polls and won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump, but she still lost. That's because the US uses an electoral college system, so winning the most votes doesn't always win you the election.

With that caveat aside, Joe Biden has been ahead of Donald Trump in national polls for most of the year. Biden has hovered around 50% in recent weeks and has had a 10-point lead on occasions.

The BBC is keeping track of those polls here and trying to work out what they can and can't tell us about who will win the election.

Maya Harris, Kamala Harris's younger sister, said she was "incredibly proud" - and shared a photo from Kamala's (much) younger days.

The Harris sisters are close, and the elder wrote in her autobiography that both of them were immersed in Oakland's black culture.

"My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters," she said. "She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women."

Many former Biden and Harris rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have weighed in to offer their praise and congratulations on Twitter.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote that she's known Harris a long time and that she's always been "unafraid and an inspiration to millions of women who see themselves in her".

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, another rising party star and black American, wrote: "I'm proud to call Kamala Harris my dear friend and sister - and next year, I'll be even more proud to call her our vice-president. This is history."

Amy Klobuchar, US Senator from Minnesota, said she was "filled with joy" that Harris is the nominee. "This is a historic moment, and I know that her leadership, experience, and character will help move our country forward when she and Joe Biden take back the White House!"

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Harris has fought "tirelessly for justice, dignity and equality for All Americans" and that he "can't wait" to call her vice-president.

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, former New York City mayor, said Harris was a "smart choice who will be a strong partner in the White House" while offering a criticism of President Trump, saying: "The best executives know that you're only as good as the team you build. It's a lesson that clearly escaped our current president."

Asked again to react to Biden's vice-presidential announcement, Trump responds: "Well I like Vice-President Mike Pence much better. He is solid as a rock."

"I will take him over Kamala and the horrible way she treated Justice Kavanaugh," he says, referring to her grilling of the then-Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual misconduct as a teenager.

"I thought she was the meanest and most horrible and most disrespectful of anyone in the US senate," Trump continues.

"She's also known, from what I understand, the most liberal person in the US senate," he claims, saying that her progressive credentials will not serve to aid Biden's campaign for president.

Trump is now laying into Harris during his White House briefing.

"She is a person that has told many many stories that weren’t true. She’s very big into raising taxes."

"She wants to slash funds for our military at a level which nobody can even believe," he says. "She’s against fracking. She’s against petroleum products," he continues, saying that her anti-fossil fuel believes could cost her in some states such as Pennsylvania.

"She's in favour of socialised medicine," he says, claiming that she wants to strip health insurance from 180m Americans.

Trump claimed Harris was his "number one draft pick" to be named as Biden's running-mate. "And we'll see how she works out. She did very very poorly in the primaries as you know," he says.

He also said he would not forget Harris's assertive questioning of Brett Kavanaugh, one of Trump's picks for the Supreme Court who was accused of sexual misconduct, during the judge's confirmation hearing. Trump claimed the senator was "extraordinarily nasty" towards Kavanaugh, who was later confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Peyton Forte, 21, is a recent graduate at North Carolina A&T State University. She tells the BBC what she thinks of Kamala Harris as the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee.

“To have the first black woman vice-president in American history – it looks good, it sounds good, but what can you do, she’s not my pick. I would have liked for Joe Biden to go for more of a progressive, like Elizabeth Warren.

Kamala doesn’t shake the table enough for me in terms of her demands for things that I hold dear, such as universal health care, the total elimination of student debt and raising the minimum wage.

I think that we kind of get carried away, especially as black people, by the ‘first this’ and ‘first that’, it’s just seen as a gigantic milestone. But are you fighting for some of the values that the black community holds dear? Are you actually speaking to fellow black folks about what they’d like to see?

I’m not thrilled, but it was a safe choice. Maybe in 2024, things will be different.”

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

Image source, Family handout

As a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris went after Joe Biden during a debate, calling him out for his opposition to school busing in the 1970s and telling her own personal story about desegregation.

"That’s why she’s a good choice," says George Mason University’s LaNitra Walker, a member of the affiliate faculty on African Americans studies. Ms Walker believes Harris would challenge Biden on issues and would bring an important perspective to the executive branch.

The California senator attended Howard University, a historically black college and is “a voice for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement”, says Ms Walker. On a personal level, she says she was thrilled to hear the announcement.

She ran and told her eight-year-old son, Nathan, (pictured with her) explaining “how historical it was”. She adds: “He was just really excited to hear that there’s a black leader on the presidential ticket.”

President Donald Trump announced a last minute press conference after news emerged of the Democratic vice-presidential pick. He is speaking live from the White House briefing room now.

“The Democrats are being taken over by the radical left” the president claims, denouncing “looting and rioting” that has happened in cities run by majority Democrat government.

He has yet to directly address Biden's choice for running mate, but is continuing to criticise Democrats, who he accuses of appointing prosecutors "who side with the criminals".

Image source, Getty Images

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who campaigned against both Biden and Harris to be the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, has just tweeted his approval.

"Congratulations to @KamalaHarris, external, who will make history as our next Vice-President," says the self-described Democratic Socialist.

"She understands what it takes to stand up for working people, fight for health care for all, and take down the most corrupt administration in history," he continues. "Let’s get to work and win."

However, not all of Sanders supports feel the same way, as indicated in the reactions to his tweet. Many view Harris as a "cop" who is far too cozy with law enforcement.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), America's largest grassroots civil rights organisation, called Harris's selection as vice-presidential candidate a "defining moment in US history".

"Throughout the history of this nation, black women have been at the forefront of moving us toward a more representative and unified society," says NAACP president Derrick Johnson, external.

"But their representation in the highest levels of government has never matched their unwavering participation in our democracy. Today’s announcement of a black woman, Senator Kamala Harris, as the first vice-presidential candidate of a major political party, breaks down one of these barriers in historic proportions.

"That it comes at a time in which black Americans face dueling threats from a global health crisis and ingrained racism is all the more powerful."

Johnson said the moment - a "culmination of the tireless work" of other black women activists and lawmakers like Shirley Chisholm and Rosa Parks, was "long overdue", and every American, regardless of party, should be proud of this milestone.

The NAACP also cautioned that coverage of Harris's candidacy should not "decline into ugly racist and sexist stereotypes and attacks".

A’kayla Sellers, 21, is a Democrat from South Carolina. She is about to attend her final year at the College of Charleston, and is part of the historically African American sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha - of which Kamala Harris was also a member.

"I’m very impressed that not only did he choose a woman but an African-American woman - that’s exciting. I was going for Kamala at the beginning. What attracted me to Kamala earlier on was that she was an African-American woman that worked from the ground up.

I know a lot of African Americans weren’t fans of Harris. Her prison reform stance. A big thing for her is that she really wanted to go for the African-American community and act like her policies were going to benefit us, but her track record didn’t line up with her policy stances so it made a lot of people wary.

Still, she can bring awareness to black issues, she can bring awareness to needs of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and awareness to the needs of minority students at predominately white institutions. She can bring awareness to the needs of affordable education. I can see a lot of great things coming from this."

Not everyone is as thrilled as high profile party members over having Kamala Harris on the ticket. Some more left-leaning Democrats have expressed concerns over picking the former prosecutor.

Former Bernie Sanders campaign National Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray echoed some of the early criticisms of Harris' presidential bid on Twitter, saying: "We are in the midst of the largest protest movement in American history, the subject of which is excessive policing, and the Democratic party chose a 'top cop' and the author of the Joe Biden crime bill to save us from Trump."

It's a similar story in the replies to Senator Sanders' tweet congratulating Harris, with progressive Democrats criticising the party's pick of a "cop".

Micah Uetricht, an author and deputy editor of the socialist Jacobin magazine, wrote: "The largest uprising of any kind in American history just took place against exactly the kind of policies Kamala Harris has instituted throughout her political career - and that uprising made zero impact on Biden's decision-making for his VP pick. Pretty amazing."

Image source, Getty Images

"Choosing a vice-president is the first important decision a president makes," says former President Barack Obama in a statement.

"Joe Biden nailed this decision. By choosing Senator Kamala Harris as America’s next vice-president, he’s underscored his own judgment and character," he says.

To remind you, Obama picked Biden to be his running mate in 2008 and Biden served under him for eight years as vice-president.

"I’ve known Senator Harris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job," Obama continues.

"She’s spent her career defending our constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. Her own life story is one that I and so many others can see ourselves in: a story that says that no matter where you come from, what you look like, how you worship, or who you love, there’s a place for you here."

He concludes: "This is a good day for our country. Now let’s go win this thing."

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

"Joe Biden gets something right."

That’s what Georgetown University’s Marcia Chatelain, the author of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration, and others say.

Biden decision to pick Kamala Harris as a running mate, says Ms Chatelain, is a “recognition of the moment of racial reckoning that the country is on now”.

Ms Chatelain acknowledges that some progressives are unhappy with her work as a district attorney in California, pointing to “draconian” policies that she supported in the criminal justice system.

But since then, Harris has changed, says Ms Chatelain. An experienced campaigner, Harris is now “practised at defending her record and revising her positions” - skills that will serve her well during the final weeks of the campaign.

Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, says she's "thrilled" to see Harris on the ticket - and knows "she'll be a strong partner to Joe Biden".

Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. She became San Francisco's top prosecutor in 2003 and rose to become the first woman and first African American to serve as California's attorney general.

In her nearly two terms in office as attorney general, Harris gained a reputation as one of the Democratic party's rising stars, and used the momentum to propel her election victory as California's junior US senator in 2017.

A self-described "progressive prosecutor", Harris has tried to emphasise more left-leaning parts of her legacy - requiring body cameras for some special agents at the California Department of Justice, the first state agency to adopt them, and launching a database that provided public access to crime statistics. However, some have questioned her commitment to left-wing policies.

While her law enforcement background may have hindered her early 2020 campaign efforts, those same credentials could prove beneficial in the general election when Democrats need to win over more moderate voters and independents.

We've just seen this image from the Biden campaign's official photographer, showing the former vice-president video calling the possible future vice-president.

Let's take a look back at a few of the photos that show how her political and legal career was shaped.

In May, Harris posted this photo on Instagram, showing her protesting South African apartheid as a student at Howard University - a historically African American University in Washington DC.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

KJ Kierney is a Democrat from Charleston, South Carolina. The 37-year-old environmental justice advocate tells the BBC what he thinks of Harris as the VP pick.

"I understand black women in particular those who are labeled ambitious tend to only have negative things brought up about them.

With Kamala as a vice-presidential nominee, it's 100% going to make the race more racially polarised. When Obama was campaigning they attacked Michelle and she wasn’t even campaigning. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for Senator Harris. They’re going to find reasons to attack her but I think it’s the job of those of us who are supportive to be very vocal on the other side and be a champion for her.

As a black person, I'm happy because I feel like we will finally have someone center the issues that matter to me. She will be able to talk to Biden and have his ear and let him know how this is going to impact the black community."