What’s next for Kamala Harris? It isn’t governor of California
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kamala Harris confirms she will not run for California governor in 2026.
- Harris plans to support Democrats nationwide in 2026 using her fundraising network.
- Her future political viability, including a 2028 bid, remains uncertain.
Kamala Harris won’t run for governor of California in 2026. The former vice president and U.S. Senator said Wednesday she plans to remain in the public eye, but she did not share specifics about her future plans.
“For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” Harris said in a statement. “I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.”
In a nation where political leaders regularly serve into their 80s and 90s and sometimes die in office, Harris, at 60, still has plenty of time and energy to give. And as she steps back from public office, the Oakland-born Harris has plenty of options.
She could run for president again in 2028, which would be her third presidential bid after she dropped out of the 2020 race. The primary race would likely put her up against current Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Some strategists say it would be a mistake for Harris to make another attempt at courting Democratic voters who want new leadership.
“We Democrats tend to put defeated presidential candidates in the rear view mirror pretty quickly,” said strategist Garry South, listing failed presidential nominees Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry. “The notion somehow that she could come back in 2028 and be a viable candidate for president, I think, is a pipe dream.”
Another option, South said, is for Harris to follow the path of Gore, who was a sitting vice president when he ran for the top office and lost in 2000. He went on to become a leading advocate for the environment and fighting climate change.
“She could potentially pick an issue area and be a very vigorous spokesperson,” he said. “What that would be is up to her.”
Harris’ most likely course of action in the near-term is using her considerable fundraising network to support Democrats running in next year’s midterms, something she mentioned doing in her announcement.
During her 107-day campaign in 2024, Harris raised more than $1 billion and shattered fundraising records.
“It isn’t like she can replicate that,” South said, noting that Harris jolted the Democratic base after President Joe Biden dropped out and endorsed her. “That’s not realistic, but she is a national figure and does have a national fundraising base. She could certainly utilize that to lay in a pretty significant store of money to support Democrats, particularly in targeted seats in 2026 in the House.”
Harris allies said Wednesday they welcome the former VP’s efforts to stay engaged in pushing back against the Trump administration.
“We’re in a fight for our democracy, and everyone has an important role to play. Although Kamala Harris is not running for governor, I am confident that she will remain a courageous leader during this critical time,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, a friend and mentee of Harris.
Harris’ political rise and fall
From the moment Kamala Harris arrived in Washington as a U.S. senator in January 2017, she was pegged as a likely presidential candidate.
She was a political meteor who in roughly 20 years went from being San Francisco’s prosecutor to California attorney general and U.S. senator to the vice presidency. It was as logical a political progression as a national figure makes, capped by her 2024 presidential bid.
Wednesday, the meteoric rise not only stalled, but the glow may have disappeared.
Harris had checked so many crucial political boxes. She had won three times in the nation’s biggest state. She was the only Black woman in the Senate, the second in history. She demonstrated she could win elections with a diverse constituency. And she was outspoken on behalf of visible Democratic causes.
Harris quickly vaulted into the national discussion in 2018 with her tough questioning of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked him at his Senate confirmation hearing. Kavanaugh looked puzzled.
Pressed for more specifics, Harris said, “Male versus female.” Kavanaugh finally said he was “not thinking of any right now.”
Her reputation was soaring among Democrats. “Democrats will make sure they tee it up for her,” said Fernando Guerra, professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, of her national potential.
She proved to be a shooting star. She began a bid for the White House in January, 2019 with an energetic rally in her native Oakland that drew an estimated 20,000 people.
That energy dissipated by the end of the year. She stumbled at times. As she began her campaign, she told CNN “I believe the solution — and I actually feel very strongly about this — is that we need to have Medicare for all. That’s just the bottom line.”
But during a candidates’ debate in June, Harris was less certain, saying “In my vision of Medicare for All, it includes private insurance where people can have supplemental insurance.”
By December, Harris was out of the race.
She would have a second life as a national figure.
Biden felt pressure to pick a Black running mate, and at first, the Black community was not high on Harris. As recently as 2016, she had called herself California’s “top cop,” and her early tough on crime stands were not warmly received among many Black activists.
Once picked as Biden’s running mate, though, the Black community quickly rallied around her.
But Harris had a difficult time fitting into the Biden administration. She was tasked with finding the root causes of migration from several Central American countries, as the administration appeared to be unable to ease the flow of undocumented immigrants over the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Presidential Greatness Project, conducted by two college professors, ranked Harris 11th among 18 vice presidents in the modern, post-1933 era. The study surveyed 150 presidential scholars in late 2023.
“There is little to suggest that she played a major role in the administration or that she had a strong role in President Biden’s decision making, as opposed to the role Biden played in the Obama White House, for example,” said Justin Vaughn, associate professor of political science at Coastal Carolina University and study co-director.
“Harris’s vice presidency had some mild chaos with turnover and occasional negative media coverage and she didn’t perform with aplomb on the signature issue she was handed (immigration), but at the same time there haven’t been the disastrous performances we associate with other, more infamous vice presidents,” he said.
Once a vice president, it’s been almost automatic in recent history that you’re the party’s nominee if you run to immediately succeed your boss. When Biden dropped out of the race last July, Harris was quickly the choice despite calls for an open selection process.
Harris immediately faced another situation typical of vice presidents trying to run: She was tied to an unpopular incumbent.
Inflation had hit a 40-year high in 2022 and the immigration situation was stirring bitter controversy in a lot of border states.
Because Harris had entered the race so late in the cycle, the public knew little about her. A late October Economist/YouGov poll found she and Trump virtually tied in perceptions of who they were. Half of registered voters said Harris was a strong leader. Roughly the same was said that about Trump.
She couldn’t escape the Biden shadow. Only once since 1836 — George H. W. Bush in 1988 — has an incumbent vice president immediately succeeded a president who had served their full term.
Al Gore couldn’t do it in 2000. Neither could Richard Nixon in 1960 or Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Biden waited four years after Barack Obama left office before winning the White House. Nixon won on his second try in 1968.
Running in California seemed a logical next step. Harris had won two races as attorney general and won her Senate seat in 2016 in a landslide.
Instead, her electoral career’s future has plateaued. She could return to national prominence, perhaps as a Democratic president’s attorney general or even Supreme Court nominee.
This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 5:37 PM.
