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Kamala Harris takes her tea plain. On a late September afternoon, the attorney general of California met me in the silver lobby of the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue. She wore a sturdy Hermès belt and boot-cut jeans; her long bob brushed against her shoulders with a West Coast ease. Harris is running for Senate. She was in New York for a campaign event and to see her sister Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

When Harris tells me about Maya, her voice rises above the lobby's din. "She's my best friend," she says. That talent, Harris's ability to cancel out white noise, has propelled her to the forefront of the Democratic Party's impending renaissance. She's already been identified as a "prohibitive favorite" in the race for the Senate. In 2010, Harris broke down three barriers at once: she defeated Los Angeles County D.A. Steve Cooley in the race for California becoming the first woman, black American, and Asian-American to be elected to the office. Throughout her decades-long career as a prosecutor, Harris has honed a sophisticated, data-driven approach to resolving issues of social justice. What follows is a discussion of her civil-rights background, her initiatives on child justice and cyber exploitation, and her thoughts on work culture.