Former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s decision this week not to enter California’s gubernatorial contest has left the door open to a third White House run, a gamble that carries both benefits and possible pitfalls.
Harris, who ran as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, has greater name recognition than many other governors, senators, representatives, and mayors who have directly or indirectly shown interest in running. She is also a fundraising machine and has built up a large list of small and medium-dollar donors that she could tap at any minute. She’s got experience under her belt and knows the stamina it takes for a campaign.
“She also just earned over 75 million votes, so she isn’t behind any candidates already starting their 2028 shadow campaigns and in some sense the national attention she will get for her book tour, and as a result of her keeping a low profile until now, will far exceed the press other contenders can get over the next several weeks or months,” Kaivan Shroff, a political commentator who worked on Hillary Clinton’s digital team, told the Washington Examiner.
Others, such as political strategist Adin Lenchner of Carroll Street Campaigns, are skeptical of a Harris win and believe it would be much harder than she or her advisers think.
“We’re still in the preseason. What we’re seeing now isn’t about frontrunners or inevitability — it’s about which potential candidates are willing to put in the early work: building infrastructure, listening to voters outside their comfort zone, and stress-testing their message in real time. That’s what this phase is for,” Lenchner told the Washington Examiner.
While acknowledging Harris’s strengths, Lenchner said he believes Democrats aren’t looking for just credentials or a familiar face.
“They’re looking for clarity, for urgency, for someone who meets the scale of the challenges people are facing. And that means whoever wants to lead the party in 2028 will have to do more than announce — they’ll have to connect with voters in an authentic and substantive way,” he said. “The last few elections have shown us that voters are rewarding campaigns that feel real — campaigns that build trust, speak plainly, and offer more than polished talking points. If the past is any indication, the person who figures out how to do that in South Carolina or Nevada or Michigan is going to surprise a lot of people — and maybe even rewrite the narrative before it begins.”
Democratic strategist David Axelrod predicted on CNN that Harris would begin the race as the polling leader “just by dint of having been the nominee the last time,” but added that “a lot of Democrats want to turn the page on all of that and look forward, and so it‘s not going to be easy for her.”
“The Democratic Party has been strategizing on ways to turn their messaging around and appeal to a wider swath of America. Last year, Democrats lost the White House as well as both chambers of Congress. The last thing they need is a reminder of all the ways the election went sideways,” Axelrod added.
“When the Democratic Party needed to appeal to voters fed up with defenders of the existing order, Harris opted to emphatically represent the status quo,” Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, wrote in an opinion piece. “She gained instant and lasting scorn in early October when, appearing on The View, she was asked, ‘Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?’ Harris replied, ‘There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
“That response was much more than just a botched answer. It expressed a basic orientation that remains part of Harris’s political persona. A Harris 2028 campaign would remind Democratic voters of her undue loyalty to Biden, whose brand is now badly tarnished in his own party at the grassroots,” he added.
Harris announced Thursday that she spent the first six months of the year writing a 326-page tome about her historic 107-day sprint for the White House.
While she was writing, a growing field of 2028 Democratic hopefuls was strategizing. Over the span of 10 days in July, three Democratic presidential prospects showed up in South Carolina, where the first presidential primary votes won’t even be cast for another two years.
Nearly a half-dozen others have made recent trips to the state, New Hampshire, and Iowa — the three states that traditionally host the country’s opening presidential nomination contests.
Among those in South Carolina was fellow Californian Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). The Democratic governor has cast himself as the leading rival to President Donald Trump and has been a vocal critic of the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with blue-collar voters. He spent two days touring rural parts of the state, making stops in some of its reddest counties that have been economically devastated over the years.
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), who said he’s considering a 2028 bid, also spent two days in South Carolina. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who is part of the party’s progressive wing, traveled cross-country to the Palmetto State. Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) visited New Hampshire at the end of April while former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to Iowa. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) visited New Hampshire in July.
COMEBACK KAMALA? HARRIS HOLDS ON TO HER PRESIDENTIAL DREAMS
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) will visit Iowa this month, while former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning to attend a fish fry in the state in September.
“If Harris wants to be seen as a serious contender, she needs to start acting like it or else she’ll be left behind,” California-based political strategist Greg Richards told the Washington Examiner.
