The campaign of Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden has raised US$48 million in the 48 hours since he named US Senator Kamala Harris the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

On Tuesday, Biden, a former vice president himself, picked Harris as his choice for VP, making her the first Black woman on a major-party US presidential ticket.

With social unrest over racial injustice rocking the country for months since the death in custody of an African-American man, George Floyd – after a police officer knelt on his neck for about nine minutes – Biden was under pressure to select a Black woman as his running mate.

Harris, a 55-year-old senator from California who made her own run for the White House, is also the first Asian-American on a major presidential ticket.

Her parents were immigrants, her mother from India, and her father from Jamaica.