What’s Next for Kamala Harris?
She's not likely to ride off into the sunset at 60.
![Vice President Kamala Harris attends a meeting with President Joe Biden and their “Investing in America” Cabinet to discuss the Administration’s economic agenda, Friday, May 5, 2023, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.](https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/52908049214_4337a84501_b.jpg)
POLITICO (“Harris is telling her advisers and allies to keep her political options open“):
Kamala Harris has been lying low since her defeat in the presidential race, unwinding with family and senior aides in Hawaii before heading back to the nation’s capital.
But privately, the vice president has been instructing advisers and allies to keep her options open — whether for a possible 2028 presidential run, or even to run for governor in her home state of California in two years. As Harris has repeated in phone calls, “I am staying in the fight.”
She is expected to explore those and other possible paths forward with family members over the winter holiday season, according to five people in the Harris inner circle, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Her deliberations follow an extraordinary four months in which Harris went from President Joe Biden’s running mate to the top of the ticket, reenergizing Democrats before ultimately crashing on election night.
“She doesn’t have to decide if she wants to run for something again in the next six months,” said one former Harris campaign aide. “The natural thing to do would be to set up some type of entity that would give her the opportunity to travel and give speeches and preserve her political relationships.”
A companion Playbook article (“The big decision facing Kamala Harris“) notes:
While the two aren’t mutually exclusive technically, they are practically — there’s an “emerging consensus that she probably can’t do both,” Eugene and Chris report. Assuming she is elected governor, it would be hard to imagine her turning right around and running for president given the demands on the leader of the nation’s largest state. (As one confidant put it, “It’s a real job.”)
But they’re both credible paths. While no Democrat is pleased with the election’s outcome, obviously, much of the blame inside the party seems to be going to her boss for staying in the race as long as he did. And while there are recriminations about the Harris campaign’s strategy and spending, polls show Democratic voters continue to have a positive impression of the candidate herself.
— The road to Sacramento: Few around Harris thought the open race to succeed term-limited Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM might be appealing to an ex-presidential nominee. But that thinking is starting to change.
Yes, going from VP to governor could be like a step down in prestige. But a Governor Harris would have more power than she’s held in any other position she’s previously held, and — as Newsom has shown — it would give her a potent platform to take on Trump. And two terms as California’s first woman (and African American, and South Asian) governor, the thinking goes, would be a fitting capstone to a pathbreaking career.
As a political matter, the road to the governorship would likely be relatively smooth. A recent UC Berkeley poll found nearly half of likely California voters were inclined to support her for governor. In other early polls of the field, possible Democratic candidates like KATIE PORTER, XAVIER BECERRA, ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA and ROB BONTA are lucky to clear double digits.
The primary election takes place in July 2026, and every pol we’ve spoken to — Harris ally or not — agrees that she has the potential to clear the field, so she has time to decide. But the longer she waits, the more opportunity she gives rivals to gain a foothold.
— The road to the Oval Office: Harris, it’s safe to say, is an “X factor” in the 2028 presidential derby. Some Democrats are dismissive of another run given her loss, and — unlike in California — it’s unlikely other Democrats would defer to her. “I can’t conceivably imagine the party turning to her a second time,” said one strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly.
But polls have found her miles ahead of other Democrats in very, very early polling of the prospective field. She won more presidential votes than any Democrat not named Joe Biden. And she has infrastructural advantages that others will be hard-pressed to beat, including a massive donor list
“She proved a lot of skeptics wrong as a political athlete. And her standing with the public is as good as any Democrat’s with the name ID that she has,” one Harris ally told POLITICO.
The last time a losing major party presidential nominee ran for a state governorship was 1962, when Richard Nixon (also a sitting VP when he lost to John Kennedy in 1960) ran for California’s governorship. He lost that race, too. Until this year, Nixon was also the last losing major party nominee to successfully get renominated (in 1968).
Al Gore was only 52 when he lost the 2000 race and, unlike Harris, he won the popular vote. While there was speculation multiple times that he would run again, he never did.
I would think Harris, who won statewide elections for Attorney General and U.S. Senator in California, would have a very good chance, indeed, at winning the governorship. It would be a nice consolation prize, indeed.
The climb to the 2028 nomination would be much steeper. While she has the name recognition and machinery to make a strong run, there’s a deep bench of Democratic governors and Senators who would be interested in the job. And, while people rightly think she had her hands tied based on the way she was handed the nomination, she did in fact lose the race.
At only 60, there’s always the Deion Sanders option: Both. While I agree that she would have a hard time launching a presidential bid for 2028 right after winning the governorship in 2026, she would only be 68 in 2032—certainly young enough to serve two terms as President.
She’ll run for governor of California in 2026 and lose, and tell the press, “You won’t have Kamala to kick around.” Then she’ll come back in 2032 and win the presidency.
Consulting jobs, writing books, cheering from the sidelines. Or look at what Hillary Clinton has done since 2016, Gore since 2000, etc. Unless the next Democratic president taps her for a cabinet post.
The latter has possibilities. Imagine Kamala Harris as AG in 2029. By then the felon should be dead or neutered, or both. If alive, it would be worth prosecuting him (see Pinochet). And I’d bet good money that the incoming so-called administration will produce a target rich environment for prosecution (all legal and proper).
But the best bet is the part above. Like Clinton, Harris lost to the felon. There’s no coming back from that.
@Kylopod:..
Just to cover all the bases she needs to get a cat and name it Chess.
Agree with Kathy that there is no coming back from losing to the worst president/candidate in history. While it would be interesting to see what kind of support she could garner within a normal campaign process, I don’t think the low-info voters in swing states could be persuaded to climb onboard, especially those who want a daddy figure. Governor of CA would be a nice option for her.
Any Governor of California automatically becomes a counterweight to the Trump regime. The question will be, what fights should she choose? The temptation will be to try and thwart Trump’s ethnic cleansing of illegal immigrants. I don’t know how effective that could be, and the potential for blowback is huge.
I don’t think the next governor should define themselves primarily as the anti-Trump, although that will inevitably be part of the portfolio. Best strategy would be making real progress on housing costs and homelessness. But that’s just short of suggesting she work out fusion power and flying cars.
I don’t know whether relaxing state controls on housing construction would be enough of a spur, or whether the more important obstacles are at the more local level. But California should build, baby, build.
@Charley in Cleveland:
Trump’s appeal to his base is his awfulness (assisted by the awfulness of the political machinery behind him).
The question is: will any one GOP prospective candidate rise/sink to that level of awfulness and do so with as much “charismatic” appeal, as successor?
Maybe post-Trump, the GOP will be tapped out of the awfulness+charismatic resource.
I wouldn’t rule Harris out. But then there still the bigotry + misogyny thing to deal with.
@Michael Reynolds:
I don’t know whether relaxing state controls on housing construction would be enough of a spur, or whether the more important obstacles are at the more local level. But California should build, baby, build.
The problem is right there in those two sentences. California isn’t going to build housing. Various developers with money provided by the finance industry will build most of the housing and pocket the profits. What California is going to do is give subsidies for affordable housing in these units and they will try to make it easier for the developers to show a positive cash flow. That’s it. That’s build, baby, build.
What’s happening with the Democrats is that educated base gets the truth. No one walks around cities and looks at modern developers and what they’re building and has a grasp of how it’s financed, and thinks that if we just get rid of a few regulations, the housing crisis will be reversed. Only the YIMBYs online believe that, and they’re mostly paid hacks or morons.
I will just add that the Harris-style Democrats have never once poked at the nature of the ‘we’ in ‘we need to build more housing’. If you invoke the state metaphorically as the cause while your policies make the state a dispenser of subsidies to other agents, you’re making a big admission of a flaw in your politics.
The hobgoblin public/private nature of trying to provide public goods is a feature of the blowback against the New Deal and Great Society. The Democrats want to have it both ways. They talk about the We and then the We turns out to be developers given tax breaks to provide affordable housing.
I think running for President is always once a loser then rules out the option of running again (yes, Trump is the exception). The trouble in this country is that people are now voting against someone and not for someone. Last vote for a winner was Obama. So the question is, how many voted for Harris because of her attributes and views and not simply because she wasn’t Trump. I know most of my motivation was against Trump. I would’ve voted for a yellow dog before I voted for Trump.
@Mister Bluster: Goddamn, you totally one-upped me.
I would be fine with Harris as Governor of CA. The candidate I would really like to see run for President in 2028 is Tim Wallz. I think he is so much better at connecting with … (*cough*) non-nerds … than anyone else around.
I’m not a big fan of Gavin Newsom, though it seems inevitable that he will run in 2028. He looks and sounds too slick by half. He is generally in a good policy area, so that’s a plus, but any likely D will probably be there. Wallz has spent so much more time around ordinary people, he’s much better at connecting with them.
And no, there’s nothing superior about “ordinary people”. There are, however, a lot more of them than there are nerds like me.
@Michael Reynolds:
There’s plenty of room in the Central Valley …
@Modulo Myself:
I’ve talked to builders who say it is about regs. Any new build is subject to challenge on environmental grounds, which can take years to resolve. Then there are the multitude of more local hurdles – parking space requirements, height limits and a plethora of zoning laws that has the effect of protecting the single family home and making it hard to develop apartment buildings.
The median price of California homes is now $900,000. There is a huge demand. So if builders aren’t building it’s because they can’t find a way to supply a very attractive and lucrative market. California needs to smooth the path for development. The ADU law was a start, but there again, localities erected barriers. I could have added a very nice ADU to my LA home but the setbacks made it impossible.
The empty lot next to mine in Silver Lake would have been a great spot for a 6-8 unit apartment building. But every homeowner on the street would have fought it in court.
@al Ameda:
Maybe the someday train they’re building from nowhere to nowhere might make that more viable.
I’ve seen plenty of pundits saying that the next Dem presidential candidate that is viable will be someone currently below the radar, like Bill Clinton was in ’92. Seems likely. Democrats don’t have much of a young bench, as the electorate goes Millennial and GenX dominated over the next decade.
The real change is that Democrat devotion to group “leaders” was a problem as many of those leaders failed to have the votes of their group. We saw live how union leaders would come out Harris and the membership go “hell no!” causing the official position to be not to endorse either. The black and Hispanic vote went toward Trump even as the activist “leaders” swore Democrat fealty.
All that means is that change is a’comin’ in the activist ranks who make noise but can’t deliver the votes.
See
Throw the Groups Under the Bus!
Ruy Teixeira
Nov 21, 2024
Harris may have a chance in 2028 but she’ll be running against younger opponents from the most populous generation.
This is the end of those who have real memory of the 1960s in office. In 2028, the winner will not have been older than a toddler in the 1960s. End of the errant era.
@Scott:..Trump is the exception…
Tricky Dick lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and defeated Vice-President Hubert Humphery in 1968. He got kicked around so bad that he is still the only President USA to resign in disgrace.
@Kylopod:..
Happy Thanksgiving!
@Michael Reynolds:
A few thoughts:
I don’t know about your house in Silver Lake, but when I think of that neighborhood I’m thinking of a Craftsman house. What’s a Craftsman? It’s desirable, just like Art & Crafts, Prairie Populism, beautiful inner-ring suburbs like Shaker Heights, maybe a style like Carpenter’s Gothic. Why are they desirable? Because the new looks like slop, and often they’re built like slop.
Add it into the fact that real estate is an investment (both as a buyer and for the funding sources of developers, most of which are just part of an Excel sheet somewhere). I.e, people paid money for a single-family home in Silver Lake because of its potential as an investment, and the money flowing into development is doing that out of pure abstraction, for the most part. What if the developer loses funding or their situation change? They can walk away. It’s just another shell company. But a half-finished building is sitting there, left for the neighbors.
Let’s not even go into regulations. Regulations are there for inherent reasons. You can’t argue against improving them or trying to mitigate how annoying community politics can be. But who are you going to listen to? A guy who wants to make it cheaper to build buildings? The developers who are donating huge amounts to politicians? In NYC, there was a non-profit going on about regulations and how they affect development. The board was entirely composed of execs from Toll Brothers. I’m sure there was no relationship between the two facts.
Affordable housing is a nationwide crisis. It’s a problem regardless of what the building codes. Silver Lake or where I live, in the brownstone area between Ft Greene and Bed Stuy, are probably extreme examples of the problem. No one has put forth any real solution to the actual problem, nor even a description of what’s actually happening, which is a collision between different types of capital.
You can talk about “regulations” if you want, but they manifest a desire of the populations that emitted them.
In the case of building regulations, they manifest a desire to limit or outlaw high-rises and higher density, as long as manifesting a mistrust/hatred of real-estate developers.
(While there are some pretty solid folk in that job, it is also ideal for carpetbaggers and swindlers, since it doesn’t entail an ongoing relationship. They just make the one big deal and move on.)
@Jay L Gischer:
The regulations are also there because of a long history of people buying homes and then several years later discovering that the construction was substandard and the builder has liquidated and can’t be held responsible for it.
Regulations are certainly part of the issue here in New Hampshire, but there are also the pressures of increasing amounts of conservation land, high costs to build, a building “season” somewhat dictated by the weather, and very vocal opponents to continued development. So, what we end up with is less available land + high costs + opposition to developments + really slow time frames and you get a horrible mismatch between available supply and high demand. This then causes prices to rise–fast. I live in a small, rural town with no real infrastructure (I’m on well water and have a septic system) and a regular inexpensively constructed colonial goes for $600K+.
This, then, has an impact on our labor market. Jobs go unfilled because huge swaths of the service sector can’t afford to live here (or anywhere else in New England). The Oct. 2024 unemployment rate in NH was 2.5%.
Back to Harris–I can see CA Gov, that would make sense. While a “normal” state governorship might be a step down from VP, CA is different as the world’s 5th largest economy, IMHO.
@JKB: “Someone who is not on the radar” is not a bad take.
However, my counterpoint to “throw the Groups under the bus” is that, at least when it comes to trans people, we didn’t pick this fight. The Right spent millions of dollars demonizing trans people, who everybody understands is a tiny minority. It paid off, since it put people who, you know, care about justice and fairness and facts in an unpopular position, fueled by massive ignorance.
So, I am ok with shifting focus. I am not ok with signing off on policies aimed at eradicating the existence of trans people in public life. You know, policies like Mike Johnson’s execreble bathroom policy. It shows Johnson to be either heartless or a spineless coward politically (I lean to the latter).
I mean, what might have happened if Kamala (or Joe!) had said something like, “Republicans want to talk about trans people because they know they will lose if we talk about infrastructure, or keeping Russian and China down. They want to talk about inflation, which we have already licked, because they don’t want to talk about how much growth we are experiencing, and how strong the job market is”.
Something like that. The presidency should have been able to set the agenda, and it didn’t. I think it is because of all the attacks on Hunter Biden, not Joe’s age. That’s what Bob Woodward is reporting.
That’s changing focus, while not throwing trans people under the bus.
@Michael Reynolds:
Your point is well taken.
What I didn’t say directly is that anywhere in the west side of the San Francisco Bay (from Silicon Valley up to Healdsburg) and in greater LA (from Toluca Lake, to Silver Lake to Lake Forest) it’s nearly impossible to get any multi-unit housing built (unless it’s senior housing).
The non-materials cost to build a single family home – from Santa Clara County up to Marin and Sonoma counties – is extremely high, replete with in-lieu fees for many purposes (parks, affordable housing, etc) as well as the requisite water and sewer hook ups. If you want to build a house in, say, Marin County … buckle-up … it’s going to be a long and costly ride … from purchasing the lot, to architect plans, to design review and planning boards and commissions, to finally pulling the permit, paying the fees, and then innumerable building inspections.
@Scott:
Trump breaking norms doesn’t have to redound for the benefit solely of Trumpism.
I think “She Told You So” could be a compelling campaign slogan for 2028!
@Modulo Myself:
If I want buildings to be built, I am absolutely going to listen to people who build buildings. Activists don’t build, they obstruct. Sometimes for very good reasons, and sometimes out of a generalized hostility to people making a profit. I want people to make a profit because if they do they’ll keep doing the thing I want them to do. In this case, build.
I’ll restate the fact that there is HUGE demand for homes in California, and many people who would like to profit by building homes. If all those profit-seekers cannot find a way to get a product to market, then there are obviously obstructions. Again, some of those obstructions make sense, and a lot don’t or are simply reflexive NIMBYism. There are trade-offs in life, and if we are serious about affordable housing we need to make it a priority for builders to build.
@Kathy:
Where is this written? She came within less than 2 percent of winning, and we know that more than that 2% were low info disengaged voters who most definitely did not know what they were voting for, and who will very likely not like it when they see it.
The fact that a felon can win only shows that there are no guardrails, no taboos or unbreakable norms any more. Everything is possible.
@al Ameda: Okay, how about this argument instead,
@Michael Reynolds: “I’ll restate the fact that there is HUGE demand for homes in California, and many people who would like to profit by building homes.”
The trouble is, there is a HUGE demand for homes in California — in some other neighborhood. Everyone knows how badly new homes are needed, and no one wants new homes built near them, where they might lower the real estate prices. (Another statewide goal everyone embraces while rejecting it next to them.) And those people in those neighborhoods end up having a lot of power over their elected local officials, who end up having a lot of power over statewide elected officials.
@Chip Daniels:
The way the media treated Harris this time, as compared with how they treated the felon, doesn’t fill one with optimism about a 2028 run.
Kamala Harris turned out to be a very good candidate. She had a very good campaign, by all accounts had a good ground game, was energetic, came off as smart and well informed, and beat Trump to a pulp in their one debate. Trump had what appeared to be multiple train wrecks, the Arlington incident, the New York rally, was totally incoherent on a regular basis. She still lost.
Harris was handed the nomination (for very good reasons). She was not competitive in the primaries in 2020. She can compete in 2028 but I don’t think she would win the nomination.
@wr:
Yep, the force of NIMBYism is great. As I mentioned above, the lot next to mine in Silver Lake could have accommodated an apartment building, but my neighbors would have lost their minds. In theory I could have bought the lot, built an apartment building, and made sure to rent to at least one pet sitter.
@just nutha:
Sorry, I was being sarcastic, and didn’t note that with the /s
But you’re exactly right.
I live in the Bay Area where none (or very few) of the communities on the west side of the bay, from Silicon Valley to about 100 miles north to Sonoma County, want any kind of growth in housing. Part of problem is NIMBY, and part is the high regulatory cost to builders and devopers.
Michael Reynolds and I (pretty much a lifelong Bar Area resident) have touched on this above. It’s an issue (more affordable housing) that people kind of reflexively support in concept, but once you get down to how and where … it goes nowhere.
@Michael Reynolds:
If affordable housing is such a priority, why isn’t the government stepping in and doing it on its own? Why aren’t Democrats proposing programs to finance the building of housing directly? They aren’t even throwing that out there. For better or worse, the government orchestrated the building of the suburbs in the 50s. Where is a similar vision by the Democrats? Just chanting build is not a vision.
An actual vision is here is what we think a mix of single-family homes and apartments will look like in twenty years. Here’s how much housing will be added and what the projected costs to buyers/renters are. Here are the promises we are going to give to the local groups who think neighborhood’s character should be preserved. Here’s how we structure and finance a better regulatory environment.
What we have now is a guy traffic honking his horn at everyone in his way because it’s unfair to him.
@Modulo Myself:
Alas, it still comes down to the abutters fighting tooth and nail to keep construction from happening and using whatever legal and political means to keep the building from happening. Famously, Minneapolis did away with single family zoning and several neighborhood groups banded together, sued under an environmental impact law and a judge agreed to issue an injunction. The whole thing is winding its way through the court system. Though it would be faster for the legislature to change the law and there has been a bipartisan group of legislators trying to do that. But the pressure not to allow the change from the cities and towns is relentless.
@Modulo Myself:
Alas, it still comes down to the abutters fighting tooth and nail to keep construction from happening and using whatever legal and political means to keep the building from happening. Famously, Minneapolis did away with single family zoning and several neighborhood groups banded together, sued under an environmental impact law and a judge agreed to issue an injunction. The whole thing is winding its way through the court system. Though it would be faster for the legislature to change the law and there has been a bipartisan group of legislators trying to do that. But the pressure not to allow the change from the cities and towns is relentless.
@al Ameda: The phenomenon is not restricted to your area. NIMBY is popular wherever there are middle and higher people living in single family zoning.
@Modulo Myself: I think it’s because in our sclerotic political system, whatever the key moderate element, that represents the group Democrats have to appeal to, doesn’t want becomes “not a priority” by default. You want a housing crisis? Price you or Reynolds or wr or Eddie out of the market. THAT’ll make a “housing crisis.”
@Sleeping Dog: @just nutha:
Zoning for single-family housing seems like an obvious thing to get rid of, but at a basic level the whole NIMBYs must be stopped thing has become insane. Take any moderate, and if ask them if normal people enjoy disruption they will say no. There are like five actual athletes complaining about trans women in sports, and yet it’s an issue. And yet, with housing, because the entire debate has been portrayed as growth vs degrowth/activists/anti-capitalists and this hits the sweet spot of internet-based grievance, they’re running with NIMBYs are crazy because they don’t like or trust development when it closes in on their private property.
I would like to see Harris announce her candidacy for president in 2028 tomorrow (well-ok, sometime next week when she would get press out of it.) I would be fine with her being the nominee again, but that isn’t why. I want her to captivate the news so that she can get tons of airplay criticizing the Trump administration. She should be everywhere all the time calling out the horrible shit that will be going on. The media isn’t going to do that on their own. And I think being in the news constantly is one of the things that helped Trump win, so maybe that would even work for her. Plus as a bonus when Trump tries to sic his AG on her she can remind him that, according to him, as a presidential candidate she is above the law…