Former Vice President Kamala Harris has not decided whether to run for president again in 2028, but Democrats are already debating whether she should after her bruising loss to President Donald Trump in 2024.
Harris has not closed the door to another White House bid. In fact, she is returning to the campaign trail ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, with appearances in Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia — states that could also play an early role in shaping the 2028 Democratic field. Her return has renewed speculation about whether she is testing the waters for another presidential campaign.
A recent Axios report underscored the doubts among people who know Harris and her political operation best. Five of eight former senior Harris advisers surveyed by the outlet said they believe she is unlikely to run again, while only one said he expected her to enter the race. Two others said the chances were essentially 50-50. Some former advisers who believe Harris would make a good president said they do not want her to run again because they doubt she could win.
Garry South, a veteran California-based political strategist, said Harris would be making a serious mistake by attempting another presidential campaign.
“Harris would be on a fool’s errand if she makes the unwise decision to run again,” South told the Washington Examiner. “My God, even losers Hillary Clinton and Al Gore won the national popular vote, while she lost it — to Trump, of all people, a convicted felon.”
South pointed to Harris’s 2024 performance, when Trump carried the battleground states and won the national popular vote.
“She lost all seven swing states, five of which had two sitting Democratic senators at the time,” South said. “And in her own home state of California, she won it by a smaller margin than Biden had in ‘20 — and was the first Democratic nominee since 2004 to fail to clear 60% of the vote in this dark-blue state.”
“Forget about Harris; why not bring back John Kerry? He’s still around,” he added. The former secretary of state lost the 2004 election to then-incumbent President George W. Bush.
California political strategist Matt Klink said “political pressure cuts both ways,” arguing that criticism could actually reinforce Harris’s determination to remain in the conversation.
“As long as Harris remains competitive in early polling and retains strong support among black Democrats, efforts to push her aside could strengthen her determination to prove the doubters wrong,” Klink told the Washington Examiner. “That said, Harris’s viability as a 2028 front-runner is very much in doubt as her 100-day presidential race in 2024 was less than inspiring.”
Keeping 2028 speculation alive
Harris’s return to the campaign trail suggests she remains an important figure within the Democratic Party.
Her Michigan appearance Tuesday with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed marks her first major campaign stop of the midterm election cycle. She is also expected to make stops in Nevada and Georgia.
Michael Fahey, a political analyst, said the timing and openness of the discussion surrounding Harris are significant.
“I think the most important thing here is that this conversation is happening at all, this early and this publicly,” Fahey told the Washington Examiner. “Kamala Harris has not made a decision about 2028, but former advisers, donors, and other Democrats are already gaming out a race without her.”
“That tells you she still has enormous political relevance, but it also tells you there is a real appetite inside the party to figure out what comes next,” he added.
Fahey cautioned against assuming the pressure will necessarily push Harris out of the race.
“Politicians at this level are rarely talked out of running simply because insiders are skeptical, and sometimes the opposite happens,” he said.
Harris decision shaping Democratic field
Another reason Harris’s decision is drawing attention is that it is already affecting potential rivals’ calculations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) recently said he would not run for president in 2028 if Harris entered the race, citing their overlapping networks of supporters and donors. He also described a Harris-Newsom primary as “mutual assured destruction” and called it a “waste of everyone’s time.”
“Gavin Newsom saying he will not run if Harris does only increases the stakes because suddenly her decision is affecting the rest of the field before there even is a field,” Fahey said.
For Harris, the central question may ultimately be whether she can make a case for a second campaign that is meaningfully different from her 2024 effort.
“If she cannot, then the voices urging the party to move forward are going to become much harder to ignore,” Fahey said.
Dave Spencer, a political commentator and co-host of Practically Political, said the criticism coming from Harris’s own former advisers could carry particular weight.
“Harris was already at best ambivalent about running again, and if she does, it would be an uphill slog,” Spencer told the Washington Examiner. “You are now starting to see some of her own former advisers, people who advised her and supported her in 2024, saying she shouldn’t run, which provides additional support for why she won’t run.”
Spencer also pointed to the party’s history of presidential nominees seeking a second chance.
“On the Democratic side, candidates are no longer given second chances,” he said. “In fact, historically, Democrats have been much more hesitant than Republicans to renominate someone after a presidential loss.”
The most recent Democratic nominee to lose a general election and return as the party’s nominee four years later was Adlai Stevenson, who lost to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and was nominated again in 1956.
Spencer sees Newsom’s comments as further evidence that some Democratic insiders are anticipating a Harris exit.
“Gavin Newsom seems convinced she isn’t going to run, or he wouldn’t have said that if she runs, he won’t,” Spencer said. “So when you put all of that together, the writing is on the wall.”
Not everyone sees the events as particularly meaningful.
Steve Adler, a political commentator, said Harris’s decision will ultimately be driven by her own assessment, not speculation.
“Talk like this neither pushes a candidate at that level out of a race nor stiffens her resolve to run,” Adler told the Washington Examiner. “Those are very personal calls made on the basis of conviction, not chatter.”
KAMALA HARRIS TO CAMPAIGN WITH EL SAYED AS DEMOCRATS LOOK TO UNIFY VOTERS
He said the next Democratic nominee will be the candidate who can “offer the best hope of real change, and not just from Trump, but also from the status quo before him that wasn’t serving people well either.”
For now, Harris seems to be keeping her options open. Her return to the campaign trail gives her a chance to rebuild relationships with Democratic voters. But time is ticking, and some of the loudest questions about whether she should run again are coming from Democrats who once worked to put her in the White House.