https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/16/kamala-harris-future-governor-president/
Kamala Harris grapples with her future in a wounded Democratic Party
As questions loom about a run for president or governor, many Democrats do not blame Harris for her loss, but that doesn’t mean they want her to run again
Dec 16, 2024 05:00 AM
When Mitt Romney lost his 2012 presidential race, he bought several properties in Utah and spent time with his growing brood of grandchildren before seeking — and winning — one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.
When Hillary Clinton lost her 2016 bid for the White House, she retreated to the woods of Chappaqua, New York, before embarking on various projects, including a political action committee and several books.
Both enjoyed fleeting boomlets suggesting they make another run, but they ultimately followed the path of most losing major-party candidates in modern history by declining to seek the presidency again. Their parties, in essence, had rendered a stark verdict: They had blown winnable races and did not deserve another chance.
In the wake of her own 2024 loss, Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies are grappling with what her political future holds and debating whether the unofficial rule still applies — specifically, whether her first shot at the White House as the Democratic nominee should also be her only one, given the extraordinary circumstances of Harris’s 107-day sprint to Election Day.
They point not just to President-elect Donald Trump’s own unusual trajectory — he won the presidency in 2016, lost in 2020, and ran again in 2024 — but to the hand Harris was dealt. After President Joe Biden’s devastating performance in a presidential debate in late June, Harris — a woman of color — inherited a campaign built for a White man two decades her senior who had hemorrhaged support from nearly every major demographic group required to win.
In just over three months, Harris had to vet a running-mate, stand up a convention, introduce herself to voters, reframe Democrats’ message to Americans angry about inflation and prosecute the case against Trump, among other campaign requisites. Despite losing decisively — Trump swept her in all seven battleground states — she emerged with a higher approval rating than when she launched her bid, according to the political website 538, and she has largely escaped blame amid the seething recrimination and finger-pointing within the Democratic Party.
Rather than blaming her, in fact, many Democrats believe she ran an impressive campaign against insurmountable odds and anti-incumbent global headwinds.
“The rules potentially don’t apply this time, and she still absolutely could have a mulligan because of the unique circumstances of this race and the candidate switch,” said Molly Murphy, a pollster who worked on the both the Biden and Harris campaigns. “But I don’t think it will be a given.”
Others contend that the old traditions — including those dictating that a one-time loser is finished — no longer apply in American politics. “Since Donald Trump has rewritten the rules — the norms — I don’t believe Kamala Harris or anyone should try to go with precedent, ever,” said Donna Brazile, a Harris ally who also managed Al Gore’s unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign. “There are no rule books. Everybody can color outside the lines.”
Still, while Harris, 60, will almost certainly get a second act, a second turn as her party’s nominee could prove elusive. Even some of her allies and former campaign aides privately concede that other aspirants would not step aside for her in 2028 and are still trying to parse how much of the groundswell of support she received during her unsuccessful bid reflected affection for her rather than relief that she was not Biden.
Some analysts also say female politicians are given less slack following a loss. And some Democrats may be wary of nominating a woman again after Clinton and Harris both suffered devastating losses to Trump.
“The landing in general has kind of been harder for women,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “Women who were at the state level and run for governor and lose, they don’t get the soft landing of a position in a law firm that allows them to regroup and earn some money and maybe run for something else. They struggle a bit.”
Harris plans to take her time deciding on her next move and remains open to a variety of possibilities, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former Harris advisers, donors and confidants, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid assessments. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, plans to return to his career as an entertainment lawyer, and shortly after the election, the couple decamped to Hawaii with a small coterie of aides to decompress and relax.
Some of her donors and supporters, particularly those in her home state, hope she will run for governor of California in 2026. But in 2015, when she was state attorney general and a rising star deciding on her next move, Harris decided not to seek that job after extensive discussions with advisers. She listed the pros and cons of running for governor versus senator on a legal pad, aides said, concluding that the Senate was a better fit for her interests and her strengths as a former prosecutor.
But as soon as she lost to Trump on Nov. 5, some Harris supporters seized on the idea of a gubernatorial run, including wealthy donors eager to see her take a leadership role in such a powerful post. “The people that drove that conversation — within 18 minutes of the election being called — was the finance team,” one Harris confidante said.
By not ruling out a run for the governor’s mansion, Harris has effectively frozen the already crowded field, with heavyweights like Rep. Katie Porter (D-California) deciding whether to enter. Many California political strategists say Harris could easily clear the Democratic field and would be the favorite in her home state, where she beat Trump by 20 points in November. It could also represent another chance for a historic first; the nation has never had a Black female governor.
“I am certain that everyone will want to support Kamala Harris in continuing to serve this country,” said Porter, when asked how a Harris decision would affect her own thinking. “Given that she’s a thoughtful person, I’m certain that she too is thinking about what does that look like for her, and I want to support her in whatever comes next for her.”
The jockeying for the 2028 presidential run had already begun as Democratic governors converged at their winter meeting in Beverly Hills in early December. Such powerful figures as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer already seem to be laying the groundwork for their campaigns.
While Harris would face formidable competition in a 2028 presidential run, she would also start with big advantages — broad name recognition, a robust lists of donors, the experience of having run a national campaign — and the conviction among some that Harris’s loss was mostly due to Biden’s unpopularity. “It’s almost Shakespearean that Joe Biden didn’t just kill his own campaign, he killed hers, too,” a Harris campaign adviser said.
Biden’s advisers reject the idea that Harris’s loss can be pinned on him; some contend Biden would have won reelection had he not been pushed out by his own party, despite polls at the time suggesting otherwise. Others note that when Harris sought the presidency on her own, in 2019, her campaign collapsed before a single primary vote was cast.
On a call with donors and supporters in late November, Harris did not reveal her thinking about her next move, but she said she would stay engaged in the public arena. Allies said she is still “processing” her loss but plans to “stay in the fight” — an echo from her November concession speech, where she used the word “fight” 19 times.
“The fight that fueled our campaign — a fight for freedom and opportunity — that did not end on November 5,” Harris said on the call. “A fight for the dignity of all people — that did not end on November 5. A fight for the future, a future in which all people receive the promise of America …. That fight’s still in us, and it burns strong.”
In the weeks after her loss, Harris and her aides received messages and calls from supporters, including many in their late teens and early 20s, urging her to continue in a public role, an adviser said. Harris has also specifically sought out correspondence from Gen Zers on a range of topics, the adviser added.
As a first step, allies and advisers say Harris is likely to start an independent political group, which would allow her to maintain control of her massive email list, travel the country, give speeches, raise money for fellow Democrats and maintain her vast network of supporters.
The specifics of her message have not yet been decided but could include themes from her campaign, such as an emphasis on reproductive rights and creating more economic opportunity for noncollege graduates. Some also expect her to use her considerable political influence to boost the campaigns of female candidates, particularly women of color.
At a recent forum at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics featuring a discussion between top officials of the Trump and Harris campaigns, Trump advisers mocked the Harris team’s contention that she had run a “flawless” campaign, saying her team was overly cautious. But they acknowledged that she had proved a far stronger candidate than Biden on a range of topics important to voters, including the economy.
“At the end of the day, the gap between President Trump and Vice President Harris on who was best able to handle a number of these issues was far smaller than the gap was between President Trump and President Biden,” said Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster. “In fact, in some cases, we saw double-digit shifts over the course of the campaign.”
That was hardly a given when Harris stepped into the race after Biden abruptly ended his candidacy on July 21. Harris showed far more agility and confidence in her 2024 bid for the White House than in her 2019 Democratic primary run, when she struggled to outflank rivals like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren by taking progressive policy positions that were at odds with the more moderate, pragmatic stances she had staked out in California.
“She proved the skeptics wrong about her abilities as a political athlete,” said Brian Fallon, a former Harris campaign spokesman.
Many aides and allies say that if Harris sought the presidency again, her candidacy would resemble 2024 far more than 2019. The more centrist, confident Harris voters saw during the general election is more in line with her true self, they said.
But while Harris enjoys greater name recognition than many of the other 2028 hopefuls — a long list that includes Democratic governors and members of Congress — several advisers to potential rivals say a granular examination of the 2024 results reveal the limits of her appeal, including a loss of support among men and working class voters who backed Biden four years ago.
“She is ending this race in a very different place than other nominees that have lost,” one Harris adviser said. “Her approval is higher. People were very happy with the race that she ran. She reached people that she never would have reached as the vice president on the ticket. Do the same rules apply as previous nominees that have lost? Nobody knows.”
I'm guessing Carl Burgos did not get any extra money