Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a gala in San Francisco in April.
Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

What Kamala Harris’s Decision for Governor Means for 2028

A Harris ally says “all options are on the table” but cautions against reading too much into the former vice president’s choice to skip the California governor race.

by · NY Times

Kamala Harris’s decision not to run for governor of California leaves open the door to a presidential campaign in 2028, even as her fellow Democrats are months into preparing for a future without her.

The ambitious governors, senators and former Biden administration officials who are already traveling the country, taping podcasts and building infrastructure for national campaigns have been aiming to put Ms. Harris and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in their collective rearview mirror.

And while Ms. Harris, as the former vice president, would enter the 2028 presidential primary as the most recognizable Democrat with the broadest fund-raising network, she would also carry the baggage of a 2024 campaign that Democrats do not view with much fondness.

At 60, she is certainly young enough to run again — and more than two decades younger than the president she served. But for a party seeking a reset after President Trump won for a second time, and figuring out how to win back trust with working-class voters, she would be anything but a fresh face.

More than a half-dozen people who spoke with Ms. Harris before she opted to skip the governor’s race advised against overinterpreting her decision as guiding her 2028 plans.

“I don’t think that any of us should jump to the conclusion that this decision had anything to do with 2028,” said Laphonza Butler, the former California senator who is close with Ms. Harris. “I do think that for her, all options are on the table if she wanted to go again and run for the presidency.”

Ms. Harris has been perched at or near the top of some of the way-too-early 2028 primary polling, though political professionals say that is largely because of her relative level of fame.

If Ms. Harris does run, it would set up a highly unusual situation where a number of candidates whom she had vetted to be her running mate, and the man she actually selected, could be her primary rivals — Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg among them.

None of those would-be candidates are expected to defer to her should she run again.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, with whom Ms. Harris has long shared senior political aides, has for months been acting like someone preparing a national campaign. And there is ample video of just about everyone in the top ranks of Democratic politics vouching for Ms. Harris for president last year.

Ms. Harris, perhaps more than any other Democrat, would have to reckon with her support for Mr. Biden as his acuity deteriorated before the American public. She did not allow any daylight between herself and Mr. Biden while he was still running for re-election. Then, when she became the party’s nominee, she said in an interview on “The View” that there was nothing she could think of that she would have done differently from him.

Some ambitious Democrats have said Ms. Harris was handicapped by the truncated nature of her own campaign. But those same Democrats — almost all of whom had backed Mr. Biden to the end — have mostly avoided blaming Mr. Biden for seeking re-election in the first place.

“There’s always the fear that if she runs for president again, 2028 could devolve into a discussion of what went wrong in 2024,” said Roger Wolfson, a Hollywood writer and Democratic speechwriter.

Ms. Harris is said to be working on a book but has yet to reveal an arrangement with a publisher, though a deal is expected soon. A book, of course, would eventually allow Ms. Harris to do a book tour and keep herself in the public eye.

She is also expected to form an organization shortly that would allow her to raise funds and pay for travel and political activities. Representative Robert Garcia of California said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Ms. Harris about traveling to competitive House districts beginning this fall to assist Democratic candidates.

“She’s going to be all across the country for the 2026 midterms,” Mr. Garcia said. “She wants to help us flip the House.”

Ms. Harris, who was widely criticized last year for doing very few media interviews, is expected to begin talking with podcast hosts and journalists beginning after Labor Day, according to a person she has spoken with about her plans.

One person who spoke with Ms. Harris said that it had been a “gut decision” for her not to run for governor ahead of a self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline and that her heart was not in a statewide campaign.

She has told colleagues recently that after holding public office continuously for two decades she was ready to take a break and instead seek to make changes from outside the political system next.

“I will remain in that fight,” she said in the last line in her statement announcing that she would not run for governor.

Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.

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