So far, Kamala Harris hasn’t spilled many word salads that contain hints about her future plans. Oh, she’s cashing in on the usual “book deal” graft, as washed-up also-ran political candidates often do; there are publishing houses that inexplicably tender big advances to political types before publishing ghost-written works that mostly clog up bookstore shelves in leftist jurisdictions for years. We can expect she will appear in the “speaking circuit,” too, although she’s unlikely to command the astronomic fees for a 45-minute ramble as either of the Obamas or Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I, Dowager-Empress of Chappaqua.
On Monday, though, Symone Sanders-Townsend, a “top advisor” of the second female Democrat presidential candidate to lose to Donald Trump, insisted that the electorate hasn’t yet seen the last of Kamala Harris.
“I don’t think the world has seen the last of Vice President Kamala Harris. I don’t know how she will show up again, but she is a young politician who garnered over 75 million votes in this election. And she will be back,” Sanders-Townsend said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” She is a co-host of the network’s “The Weekend.”
She garnered over 75 million votes, yes — and lost spectacularly. Sanders-Townsend, for one thing, seems to not understand how the presidential elector system works, nor that Donald Trump gained about five million more votes, or that President-elect Trump crashed through the Rust Belt “Blue Wall” like a cannonball through a papier-mache screen. She didn’t just lose, she got trounced, and voters tend to remember that sort of thing — for a while.
Some are touting her for another presidential run in 2028, which seems like a bit of a stretch. 2026, though, may present her with an opportunity.
She’s already topping lists of potential 2028 contenders, and early polling suggests Democrats would want to see her back in the running for the Oval Office. But the next presidential race is likely to be crowded with other Democratic rising stars — and names like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro are also in early chatter.
Others think Harris could take a break from Washington and try for the governor’s mansion in her home state of California. Newsom — who is among the rising Democratic stars seen as likely 2028 candidates — is term-limited, leaving his seat up for grabs in 2026.
A poll from the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times last month found nearly half of California voters would be likely to support Harris if she were to enter the 2026 gubernatorial race.
In other words, nearly half of California voters are willing to say, “So long, frying pan; hello, fire!”
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Predictions are hard to make. Especially about the future. Granted, political comebacks are possible; Richard Nixon came back from losing the 1960 election to win the White House in 1968 and again, in a 49-state landslide, in 1972. We all know what happened to him, of course. But Kamala Harris is no Richard Nixon. Dick Nixon could at least deliver an address or answer a question from the press without descending into a gibberish-laden word salad; Kamala Harris can’t do that.
As for her odds of even getting the nomination to run in 2028, color me skeptical. The Democrats tend to eat their wounded, and after losing to Donald Trump so decisively, Kamala Harris is damaged goods. There are those in the ranks of the Democratic Party who are beginning to twig to the fact that their party has moved their Overton Window somewhere to the left of Pol Pot, and that’s not a recipe for winning a national election.
California, thought? I hope not — I have friends in the once and former Golden State. But that’s much more possible, horrifying as the thought is. The next year or so should tell us whether Kamala Harris will try to channel her inner Terminator and arise from the ashes of her 2024 defeat.
