Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly finds herself at the center of chaos in the 2024 presidential election.

Following President Biden's poor performance in the debate in late June, there have been growing calls among Democrats for him to withdraw from the presidential race for the good of the party and the country.

Our Revolution, a liberal political action committee, raised funds Wednesday for a post-debate poll of more than 17,000 members and found that about two-thirds want to replace Biden as the top Democratic candidate.

And prominent donors, including from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, have begun publicly voicing their concerns about Biden becoming the nominee. His ABC interview on Friday night, an attempt to rehabilitate the campaign, drew lukewarm reviews, and by Saturday the number of lawmakers calling for Biden to withdraw had grown to five.

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Biden, 81, has pledged to remain in the race, but if he were to step down, Harris, the nation's first female, South Asian and Black vice president, would almost certainly be elevated to lead the Republican front-runner's campaign against former President Trump.

Harris, 59, had never lost an election when she announced her 2020 presidential run as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator. She had long been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, not only representing a generational and racial shift but also her prosecutorial prowess, highlighted by her sharp, pointed questioning in Senate hearings.

But after announcing her White House bid in 2019, Ms. Harris was inconsistent, failed to articulate what set her apart from a crowded field of Democratic candidates and struggled to motivate donors and voters in early-voting states. In-campaign infighting didn't help, either: She dropped out of the race ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the first in the nation to hold the nominating contest.

By selecting Harris as his running mate, Biden rejuvenated her political outlook, adding a youthful, diverse perspective to a presidential campaign dominated by white people in their 70s at a time when the country's demographics were shifting and racial turmoil was coming to the surface.

Democrats know that ignoring Harris if Biden withdraws could alienate some black voters, with disastrous consequences in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. If Biden were to endorse Harris, a Los Angeles resident for the past decade, it would signal a new wave of national political power in Southern California, a region not seen such an explosion since the days of the late Presidents Reagan and Nixon.

“Just as Biden has a limited amount of time to prove he can remain the nominee, she has exactly the same amount of time to prove she should be the nominee if he drops out,” said Dan Schnur, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, University of California, Berkeley and Pepperdine University. “The good news for her is that the way she proves she's ready for the top job is with all the things she says and does as a running mate anyway.”

San Francisco has dominated California politics for decades, a position cemented by the Bay Area platform of state elected officials and a political organization that has produced some of the nation's most prominent Democrats, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and former Governors Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown.

But Harris, who described Bay Area politics as a “hand-to-hand sport,” acknowledged that the center of power in the state has shifted.

“Los Angeles' elected leaders are playing a prominent role, not just in Los Angeles but across the state and across the nation,” she told The Times in an interview last fall in Los Angeles. “And they're doing an extraordinary job, by the way.”

Harris began her move to the South while dating entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff — she recalls moving “a few sweaters at a time” — and had settled in Brentwood permanently by the time they married in 2014.

The couple moved into Emhoff's multimillion-dollar, four-bedroom home (later transferred to a trust bearing the couple's initials) on a quiet street of pool-filled mansions in Kenter Canyon, a neighborhood whose reported residents include model Gisele Bundchen, rap mogul Dr. Dre, Lakers star LeBron James and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Once settled, Harris took classes at SoulCycle in Brentwood and found places to buy fresh ingredients for her favorite Sunday dinners, like Huntington Meats near the Grove and a local farmer's market.

A year after Ms. Harris moved to Los Angeles, Ms. Boxer announced she would retire at the end of her term in 2017, creating an opportunity to launch one of the state's rising Democrats onto the national stage. Ms. Harris seized the opportunity, becoming just the second Black woman elected to the senate.

Her ambitions for higher office were clear when she traveled across the country for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, shortly before announcing her candidacy for the White House.

“A lot was being asked of her going into Los Angeles,” said Sen. LaFonza Butler, a longtime friend of Harris' and adviser to her 2020 presidential campaign.

Even before Biden's failure, Harris, like other vice presidents, was seen as a possible successor to Biden, given her national name recognition and party support. One of the most important and challenging tasks of her job was to improve the economic, security and political situation in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and to stem the flow of migrants making the dangerous journey to the United States.

While Harris' approval ratings have not been that different from Biden's for a long time, her chances of beating Trump have increased since last month's debate.

She has already built a network of state officials, local party leaders and donors who could help her run for president, and some polls suggest she has an advantage among young people and people of color, key Democratic constituencies.

Heading into an election year, Biden's team tasked her with reaching out to those voters to support his reelection, and she's spent nearly a year building her reputation around issues that disproportionately affect those groups, becoming a leading voice in the administration on abortion protection, gun safety and climate action.

Last fall, she toured college campuses rallying students around government efforts on abortion rights, climate change, voting rights and LGBTQ+ equality. She launched another tour in January to oppose state restrictions on abortion rights and has recently hosted a series of events about the government's efforts to address gun violence.

Harris is touring more of the region as the race heats up, playing a key role in shaping the Biden administration's message to voters the president needs to win back in November. But she is also positioned to serve as a voice for California at a time when its political influence in Washington is waning.

“Frankly, the shift of power is moving away from California,” with Pelosi's retirement and loss of seniority in the Senate, said Shelley Bebitch Jeff, a political analyst and co-host of the podcast “Inside Golden State Politics.” “We're fortunate to have a Californian in the White House as vice president, because there's not much else left in Washington at this point.”

Senator Harris has her own allies and Los Angeles natives. After Senator Harris was elected vice president, Alex Padilla was appointed to Senator Harris, making her the first Latina to represent California in the Senate. Newsom then picked Los Angeles-based Butler to replace Feinstein, giving Southern California an edge.

“In the future, when people think about California politics, they're going to think increasingly of Southern California rather than the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, noting that “San Francisco Democrat” is no longer Republican shorthand for dismissing progressive figures.