Once considered a rising star of the Democratic Party, after an unsuccessful 2020 primary and then 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris is being encouraged to take her time as she considers her next steps after the White House.
She does plan to pen another book, but Harris, 60, is reportedly also contemplating running to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in her home state of California‘s governor mansion or even mounting a third presidential campaign.
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“Madam Vice President, what’s next?” one reporter asked her last week after she signed her ceremonial desk.
“We’re going to continue getting work done until Monday, and then I’ll keep you posted,” she replied.
Despite President Joe Biden receiving the brunt of the blame for last year’s historic election loss to President-elect Donald Trump, regardless of criticism of Harris’s performance as a candidate, most Democrats appear to prefer that the vice president pursue a California gubernatorial bid instead.
Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, who was part of Harris’s 2020 primary campaign, advised Harris “to do what’s best for her and her family.”
“Campaigns and public service are hard,” Nellis told the Washington Examiner. “She should rest and be intentional about whatever her next steps look like.”
Harris’s experience in California as San Francisco‘s district attorney and then as the state’s attorney general before becoming one of its U.S. senators “would be a huge asset” if she remained in her home state’s politics and countered Trump from there, according to Nellis.
Another Democratic strategist, Christopher Hahn, agreed that Harris “should take time and figure out her next step,” arguing that although becoming California’s governor is “tempting,” “it’s best not to rush into a choice.”
But for California Republican-turned-independent strategist Dan Schnur, Harris “is at a political crossroads,” particularly after her shaky start to the vice presidency, including the perception she did not have a comprehensive understanding of important policy issues, such as the economy and immigration.
“Well, let’s start with this: Prices have gone up,” Harris told reporters in Paris in 2021 when asked whether Biden’s pandemic-era spending would exacerbate inflation. “Families and individuals are dealing with the realities of — that bread costs more, that gas costs more. And we have to understand what that means. That’s about the cost of living going up. That’s about having to stress and stretch limited resources. That’s about a source of stress for families that is not only economic but is, on a daily level, something that is a heavy weight to carry. So, it is something that we take very seriously. Very seriously.”
Schnur added, “Her challenge is that she has to decide between running for a job she wants — president — but probably can’t win and one that she can win but may not want, governor.”
The California governor’s race is not until 2026, but there are already five major declared candidates: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, California superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond, former California Senate president pro tempore Toni Atkins, former controller Betty Yee, and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin conceded that although California governor is “a better bet in terms of odds” for Harris, compared to president, it is “not a sure thing.” At the same time, a University of California Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and Los Angeles Times poll published in November found that almost half of its respondents in the state would be very or somewhat likely to support her.
“If she is looking more at 2028 than 2026, then I would recommend finding something to keep her somewhat in the public eye, but see how the next couple years play out,” Hankin told the Washington Examiner.
But before making any announcements, Democratic strategist Jim Manley implored Harris to ruminate on her past political mistakes, most recently her loss of both the Electoral College and popular vote to Trump
“If she decides to run again I hope she and her team go back and study how poorly she handled the 2020 Democratic primary,” Manley told the Washington Examiner. “From beginning to end, it was poorly run and executed — plagued by leaks and decisions on policy that really didn’t age well.”
Harris departs Washington in a different political position than when she returned to D.C. in 2020. Back then, she was provided with a second opportunity of a first impression after that Democratic primary. But her unsteady performance from that campaign season carried over to her vice presidency, at least at the start, especially when scrutinized by reporters. NBC’s Lester Holt, for example, pressed Harris in 2021 on why she had not travelled to the southern border, notwithstanding her portfolio of responding to the root causes of migration.
“And I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” she said.
Harris eventually found a political foothold, helped in part by her role as Biden’s spokesperson on abortion and reproductive concerns after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade. But her inability to directly answer questions undermined her before the 2024 election.
“We’re obviously two different people, and we have a lot of shared life experiences,” she said of Biden. “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of [anything that she would have done differently], and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact on the work that we have done.”
During her remarks at the signing of her ceremonial desk in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Harris acknowledged politics is “fueled, yes, with ambition,” in addition to “a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing we can make a difference.”
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“I stand in a long tradition, as the 49th vice president of the United States, in a long tradition of vice presidents who have signed this desk, and I do so with great honor and with the knowledge that our work here has mattered,” she said. “It has meaning. It has impacted people we may never meet, people who may never know our name, but who are ever, forever grateful for the work that you each and we all together have done. So, I thank you all.”
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