by Sara Burnett and Amanda Seitz —

CHICAGO — In the weeks before Joe Biden named Sen. Kamala Harris his running mate, women’s groups were readying a campaign of their own: shutting down sexist coverage and disinformation about a vice presidential nominee they say is headed for months of false smears and “brutal” attacks from internet haters.

The groups put the media on notice in recent days that they will call out bias — one campaign is dubbed “We Have Her Back” — and established a “war room” to refute sexist or false attacks as they happen.

The women’s groups say their efforts are informed by the sexism Hillary Clinton faced from Donald Trump, some of his supporters and the media during the 2016 campaign.

“This time we understand the patterns, and this time we have the organizational infrastructure to push back,” said Shaunna Thomas, executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, which released a 32-page guide for media along with a coalition of groups including Color of Change PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes and Women’s March.

While the groups have primarily been led by Democrats, their efforts are backed by nonpartisan groups and some Republicans.

The war room will call out bias and disinformation against women in both parties up and down the ballot, said Tina Tchen, CEO of Time’s Up Now, which fights sexual harassment in the workplace.

The groups say intense scrutiny of a vice presidential nominee is to be expected, but women are often unfairly criticized as overly emotional, weak or unqualified, or for their appearance or demeanor in a way that men are not. The attacks, which include false smears and threats of violence online, not only hurt campaigns but also dissuade women from seeking office.

Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor and Republican, said Biden’s running mate will be at the center of an “ugly” social media campaign from online bullies.

“This is going to be brutal because these platforms allow people to do things anonymously, saying things anonymously,” Whitman said.

Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, has been the victim of online falsehoods for more than a year that say she is not eligible to become president because her parents were not born in America. More recently, Facebook users added a new twist to the misinformation: that since Harris is not eligible to be president, if Biden didn’t finish his term, the presidency would automatically default to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

There is no truth to that — Harris is a natural-born U.S. citizen who’s eligible to be president — yet the misinformation has been shared by thousands of Facebook users. Facebook has labeled the posts as false but has not removed them from its platform.

The misinformation hearkens back to the conspiracy theories in 2008 around Democrat Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, that claimed he was born in Kenya, not the United States. Those claims were amplified by Donald Trump, then a reality TV star, and gained so much traction during the campaign that Obama produced a birth certificate showing he was born in Honolulu.

The latest attacks on Harris’ citizenship were highlighted in a letter from more than 100 female lawmakers from across the world that was sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. It called on them to remove misinformation, as well as posts or accounts that threaten women.

“Much of the most hateful content directed at women on Facebook is amplified by your algorithms which reward extreme and dangerous points of view with greater reach and visibility,” said the letter, which was spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California.

Cindy Southworth, Facebook’s head of women’s safety, said the company will work with the lawmakers to “surface new solutions.”

“Abuse of women on the internet is a serious problem, one we tackle in a variety of ways — through technology that identifies and removes potentially abusive content before it happens, by enforcing strict policies, and by talking with experts to ensure we stay ahead of new tactics,” she said.

But mere minutes after Harris was announced as Biden’s running mate, pro-Trump social media personalities and conservative news outlets claimed Harris called Biden a racist during a televised Democratic debate last year. In reality, she said, “I do not believe you’re a racist,” before criticizing his past opposition to policies around school desegregation.

The road to becoming Biden’s running mate had been littered with misleading online attacks on women under consideration.

Former national security adviser Susan Rice was accused of committing crimes in office, and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who authorized strict stay-at-home orders in Michigan this year, was pelted with memes and images likening her to Adolf Hitler or an “evil queen.”

Harris is likely prepared for the onslaught ahead after watching how 2016 unfolded on social media, said Sarah Oates, a political communications professor at the University of Maryland.

“She is going to be vilified, no matter who she is,” Oates said. “In 2020, people are much more attuned and aware of it. That doesn’t mean it’s going to make it better, but at least you can be more aware of the toxicity.”

by Kathleen Ronayne and Will Weissert —

WILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.

“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted. In a text message to supporters, Biden said, “Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump.”

Harris and Biden plan to deliver remarks Wednesday in Wilmington.

In her first public statement since Biden named her as his vice presidential running mate, Harris said she’s “honored” to join the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee on the party’s November ticket.

Harris said on Twitter that Biden “can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us.” She said Biden would build a country that “lives up to our ideals.”

In choosing Harris, Biden is embracing a former rival from the Democratic primary who is familiar with the unique rigor of a national campaign. Harris, a 55-year-old first-term senator, is also one of the party’s most prominent figures and quickly became a top contender for the No. 2 spot after her own White House campaign ended.

Harris, who is also Indian American, joins Biden in the 2020 race at a moment of unprecedented national crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people in the U.S., far more than the toll experienced in other countries. Business closures and disruptions resulting from the pandemic have caused an economic collapse. Unrest, meanwhile, has emerged across the country as Americans protest racism and police brutality.

Trump’s uneven handling of the crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president. In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.

Harris’ record as California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco was heavily scrutinized during the Democratic primary and turned off some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of systemic racism in the legal system and police brutality. She tried to strike a balance on these issues, declaring herself a “progressive prosecutor” who backs law enforcement reforms.

Biden, who spent eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president, has spent months weighing who would fill that same role in his White House. He pledged in March to select a woman as his vice president, easing frustration among Democrats that the presidential race would center on two white men in their 70s.

Biden’s search was expansive, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive, Florida Rep. Val Demings, whose impeachment prosecution of Trump won plaudits, California Rep. Karen Bass, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose passionate response to unrest in her city garnered national attention.

Bass tweeted, “@KamalaHarris is a great choice for Vice President. Her tenacious pursuit of justice and relentless advocacy for the people is what is needed right now.”

A woman has never served as president or vice president in the United States. Two women have been nominated as running mates on major party tickets: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. Their party lost in the general election.

The vice presidential pick carries increased significance this year. If elected, Biden would be 78 when he’s inaugurated in January, the oldest man to ever assume the presidency. He’s spoken of himself as a transitional figure and hasn’t fully committed to seeking a second term in 2024. If he declines to do so, his running mate would likely become a front-runner for the nomination that year.

Born in Oakland to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. In the role, she created a reentry program for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy.

She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job, and focused on issues including the foreclosure crisis. She declined to defend the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

As her national profile grew, Harris built a reputation around her work as a prosecutor. After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of Trump administration officials during congressional hearings. In one memorable moment last year, Harris tripped up Attorney General William Barr when she repeatedly pressed him on whether Trump or other White House officials pressured him to investigate certain people.

Harris launched her presidential campaign in early 2019 with the slogan “Kamala Harris For the People,” a reference to her courtroom work. She was one of the highest-profile contenders in a crowded Democratic primary and attracted 20,000 people to her first campaign rally in Oakland.

But the early promise of her campaign eventually faded. Her law enforcement background prompted skepticism from some progressives, and she struggled to land on a consistent message that resonated with voters. Facing fundraising problems, Harris abruptly withdrew from the race in December 2019, two months before the first votes of the primary were cast.

One of Harris’ standout moments of her presidential campaign came at the expense of Biden. During a debate, Harris said Biden made “very hurtful” comments about his past work with segregationist senators and slammed his opposition to busing as schools began to integrate in the 1970s.

“There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”

Shaken by the attack, Biden called her comments “a mischaracterization of my position.”

The exchange resurfaced recently one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about the debate and that Harris hadn’t expressed regret. The comments attributed to Dodd and first reported by Politico drew condemnation, especially from influential Democratic women who said Harris was being held to a standard that wouldn’t apply to a man running for president.

Some Biden confidants said Harris’ campaign attack did irritate the former vice president, who had a friendly relationship with her. Harris was also close with Biden’s late son, Beau, who served as Delaware attorney general while she held the same post in California.

But Biden and Harris have since returned to a warm relationship.

“Joe has empathy, he has a proven track record of leadership and more than ever before we need a president of the United States who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be,” Harris said at an event for Biden earlier this summer.

At the same event, she bluntly attacked Trump, labeling him a “drug pusher” for his promotion of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, which has not been proved to be an effective treatment and may even be more harmful. After Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests about the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody, Harris said his remarks “

Harris has taken a tougher stand on policing since Floyd’s killing. She co-sponsored legislation in June that would ban police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and create a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would also reform the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.

The list included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. Although she required DOJ officers to wear body cameras, she did not support legislation mandating it statewide. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.

“We made progress, but clearly we are not at the place yet as a country where we need to be and California is no exception,” she told The Associated Press recently. But the national focus on racial injustice now shows “there’s no reason that we have to continue to wait.”

___

Ronayne reported from Sacramento, Calif. Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe and Julie Pace contributed to this report from Washington.