WASHINGTON: As Kamala Harris mulls whether to run for president again, she's throwing herself into the midterms by campaigning with fellow Democrats, starting with a Tuesday trip to Michigan on behalf of Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
It's an especially notable destination for the former vice president. Michigan was one of seven battlegrounds she lost to Donald Trump two years ago, and it's now one of six states that will start Democrats' next presidential nominating process. Harris has additional rallies scheduled in Nevada and Georgia, two other key places on the political map.
Her campaigning could serve to solidify or undermine her status as a potential Democratic front-runner. Although she's one of the nation's best-known politicians and a barrier-breaking figure, there are others eager to turn the page after she failed to defeat Trump when she replaced President Joe Biden on the top of the ticket.
“I think she's run her course,” said Barry Goodman, a Democratic National Committee member from Michigan who raised money for Biden and then Harris. “I just don't think her running again would be the right thing for America moving forward.”
Some Democratic candidates, especially in places Trump won handily, have curtly dismissed any possibility of campaigning with Harris. “No thanks,” Iowa gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand told Politico. “Let's move on. We need some new leadership.”
But plenty of Democrats, including some influential Black women who helped convince Biden to select Harris as his running mate in 2020, said she has more than earned the space to consider her options without being rushed or pilloried. Underscoring her unique position, California Gov Gavin Newsom recently told CNN that he would not seek the nomination if Harris does.
“Kamala isn't under any deadline to run for anything,” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair who managed Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000. She called it a “waste of time” to relitigate Harris's truncated 2024 campaign and said any White House hopefuls “should follow Kamala's lead and get out there" by trying to help midterm candidates.
Harris has not announced any upcoming trips to South Carolina, where Democrats will hold their first primary. Antjuan Seawright, a political consultant in the state, said she could make a strong case for herself but another campaign would need to look and sound different.
“She's going to have to admit that she was wrong about some things,” he said.
Harris has painful political history in Michigan. During the 2024 campaign, the state's prominent Arab American communities were outraged over Biden's support for Israel's military operations in Gaza, and they were disappointed when Harris did not break with him after she became the party's nominee.
El-Sayed, on the other hand, is an outspoken critic of Israel who has described the war as a genocide against Palestinians, an accusation rejected by Israel. He's been viewed warily by some Jewish voters, which he's tried to address by apologising for some past controversial comments.
El-Sayed told MSNOW that "there were some hurt feelings” in Michigan over the 2024 election, with some Black voters feeling like Arab Americans didn't do enough to help Harris.
With the former vice president coming to visit, he said it's a chance "to bring communities together that have often been torn apart by recent events.”
Their joint appearance will be closely scrutinized for other reasons too. Harris has a strained relationship with the party's progressive wing, which includes El-Sayed, and El-Sayed is eager to solidify establishment support during his campaign against Republican nominee Mike Rogers, a former congressman.
“We can build together on the areas of agreement, and we can come to understand each other far better on the areas where we might have seen eye to eye, and I think her coming into town will help us to do that,” El-Sayed said.
Harris' political travel has been light compared to potential presidential candidates like Pete Buttigieg, who ran in 2020 before serving as Biden's transportation secretary. He recently visited South Carolina and he's been stumping for other Democrats in the midterms.
Harris went to South Carolina in the spring, but for smaller, local party events. She recently spoke on an organising call aimed at registering and turning out 1 million more Black voters.
“There's value in doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes instead of being front and centre, especially for her," said Bre Maxwell, a Democratic National Committee member from South Carolina. She said there's little benefit for Harris to insert herself into news cycles knowing “she's still a target of Donald Trump right now.”
Jaime Harrison, a South Carolinian who served as national party chair when Biden and Harris were in the White House, said the former vice president's stature affords her the advantage of time that other potential candidates will not have.
“Many of these folks who do get in quickly would love to have that type of name ID, would love to have that type of network, to have that type of email list,” Harrison said.
Harris herself has said multiple times, including in an Associated Press interview last year, that she feels no rush to decide her next move. “Right now – midterms, midterms, midterms,” she told Megan Rapinoe on a recent podcast. Harris spokesman Eduardo Negrón declined comment when asked about her timeline.
Harris' other campaign events this fall include stops for Nevada's Democratic candidate for governor, Aaron Ford, and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, who has generated 2028 chatter of his own as he seeks reelection.
“She is certainly being strategic,” said Seawright, the South Carolina political consultant.
He noted that Harris' tour for her campaign memoir, “107 Days,” hit virtually every major Southern city in states where Black voters hold strong sway in presidential primaries that come early in the nominating process.
Meanwhile, Goodman said he's heard no evidence that Harris is working the party's top donor network. Harrison said he hasn't heard from her since last December.
Harris first ran for president in the 2020 cycle, when she was a US senator from California. But she dropped out late in 2019, before any primary votes were cast.
Some progressives saw the former prosecutor as part of a criminal justice establishment that disproportionately imprisons Black men. Some moderates saw her as another San Francisco liberal.
Biden chose Harris as his running mate, and she became the first woman and Black person to serve as vice president.
When Biden dropped his reelection bid after a disastrous debate performance, Harris generated visible enthusiasm, drawing crowds that rivaled or exceeded Trump's. She delivered a convention address and debate performance that most analysts lauded.
But she could not distance herself from Biden on inflation or immigration. Harris infamously told friendly interviewers on “The View” that she couldn't think of anything she'd have done differently than Biden. Trump hammered her with advertisements exploiting her support for transgender rights, saying “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you."
If she runs again, Seawright said, Harris would need to emphasize moderate positions and "be willing to say, you know, I've rethought some things.'” Voters, he said, “reward that kind of authenticity and humility.”
Harrison argued it would be easier for Harris to articulate her own agenda than when “she was a sitting vice president, somebody else's No 2.” But, he warned, she would also have to shed the pomp and circumstance of the vice presidency, not just its political burdens.
“You can't act like a sitting vice president, standing up on that stage,” he said. “I'd tell her she has to run hard, just as hard as everybody else, working every rope line, taking every selfie.”
Unlike Biden's handoff to her in 2024, Harrison said, “This is going to be the wild, wild west.”