Former Vice President Kamala Harris is at a crossroads after losing the 2024 presidential election to President Donald Trump. Since November 5, she has been considering her future plans and has reached out to several high-profile individuals, including former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for advice.
Harris is considering three options, according to New York Magazine: Making another run for the White House, vying for California’s governor seat, or simply riding off into the sunset as a private citizen.
Not long after the election, Harris privately began talking with family, longtime friends, and her most devoted aides about the path ahead. After a few weeks, her instructions to a few trusted advisers were clear: They should keep her options open and specifically not make any plans that could close the door to a 2028 presidential campaign. This only felt natural. She’d been running for the job since early 2019, and no one just walks away easily after getting as close as she just had.
Of all the options open to Harris, maintaining a White House–ready future would require the most groundwork, so the instruction was mostly practical; an alternative interpretation would be to act like she could run again until she decides otherwise. But according to multiple people who are close with Harris and have spoken to her since November 5, she believes she has three plausible choices. Each would include personal and political obstacles, and each would require her to make a series of mutually exclusive decisions about her life in the coming months. She could run for president again in 2028 or she could run for governor of California in 2026 or she could close the door on electoral politics after two decades in office and 35 years in public service. Harris, who is 60, is hardly decided.
Recommended
The former vice president reportedly retreated to Hawaii with her husband, Doug Emhoff, shortly after her loss to consider her next move. But she has still not publicly given any indication of the options she is considering. Of course, other Democratic operatives have given her input about what she should do.
Harris has dropped no hints about her thinking and given no interviews, leading well-wishers who know her to float creative suggestions through intermediaries: Perhaps she could become some sort of portfolio-free stateswoman, or an above-the-fray adviser to Democrats in search of policy or political guidance, or simply a very rich member of many corporate boards. Other Democrats have less sparing advice: Maybe she should just go away.
The report notes how Harris has frequently sought the counsel of Hillary Clinton after her defeat about her future.
Since November, Harris and Clinton have spoken on multiple occasions about their exceedingly rare shared experience and about how to think through the future; in December, Harris quietly slipped out of her official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington and over to Clinton’s home a few blocks away to chat and celebrate at a private reception for the former secretary of State after Biden awarded her the Medal of Freedom.
While Harris is considering a third presidential run, that ship could have already sailed because Democrats appear to desire fresh blood to take on Republicans in 2028. They wish to avoid the baggage of the disastrous Biden administration, the report noted. There is also the nagging fact that Harris is simply an awful presidential candidate with all the charisma of a malaria-infested mosquito.
However, California’s governor seat could be a viable option. A poll conducted in November showed that she would have the most favorable chance of winning among other potential candidates, with 46 percent of voters indicating they would be likely to support her if she ran. However, some have suggested she would not enjoy this job, especially with the Golden State’s ongoing crime problems, housing crisis, and wildfires.
Of course, there is the chance that she might simply retire from public life and work as a private citizen. She could give paid speeches, write books, and support Democrats from the private sector. Or, she could even join a corporate board.
From where I sit, another presidential run is out of the question for Harris. She would have no chance of winning, even if Republicans nominated a platypus for the White House. She has already had two unsuccessful runs for the presidency. The second only came because former President Joe Biden bowed out of the race – she likely would not have won a second presidential primary.
However, California would be a viable option, given her political currency in the state. Voters do not seem to have learned their lesson from propping up Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has made an utter mess of things over his tenure. In this role, she could still play an influential role in pushing leftist ideology in the state that could eventually spread to other areas of the country. California is, after all, the incubator for many of the policies Democrats wind up pushing at the national level.
At this point, there is not much of an indication as to which path Harris will choose. But one thing is clear: We haven’t heard the last cackle from the former vice president.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member