Now that the smoke has cleared from Kamala Harris’ fiery campaign crash last year and the underwhelming excitement has evaporated from her big non-announcement last month, we can examine the former vice president’s political future.
She has none.
It’s over. She's waving bye-bye in the photo.
Let’s be candid for an honest media moment. Kamala Harris never really did have a political future, only a brief symbolic moment hyped by liberal media. Harris has failed her way up every step on the political ladder. Until U.S. voters got a four-year glimpse of the Biden-Harris duo and blocked her ascent in order to reappoint a refurbished version of the Donald Trump they had rejected.
Harris’ long-teased announcement was that she will not run for governor of California next year. The tarnished Golden State is where voters elect virtually any Democrat who can breathe. They even sent her to the United States Senate in 2016.
So, if a DEI VP pick can't make it in California, she can't make it anywhere.
California is where Harris reached the height of her ascent through incompetence in the partial Senate term that she served. She accomplished nothing there, except getting plucked by Joe Biden as his vice-presidential partner in 2020 for obvious reasons that had nothing to do with skills, smarts, or presidential potential.
Then, Harris was plopped atop the Democrat ticket a year ago this month as the desperate alternative to an angry, unpopular 82-year-old man who had lost his balance and mind.
And yet when the coven on “The View” teed up their guest with the softest softball question in the history of softball questions, the desperate Biden alternative confessed she could think of nothing she would have done differently than Joe Biden.
Some accounts in sympathetic media, whose creators may have been smoking the same stuff, said Harris fully expected to win on Nov. 5 and was shocked at the results. That unveils her political IQ. On her own ticket, Harris lost every single swing state and significant chunks of traditional Democrat voting blocs she was handpicked to attract in 2020.
The woman one heartbeat away from replacing the oldest president ever, who was going to right the economic disaster she helped create, blew through – are you sitting down? — $100 million of other people’s money every single week of her pathetic 15-week campaign.
That’s almost $600,000 every hour around the clock, even while sleeping.
Media reports, for instance, said Oprah Winfrey was paid $1 million for her streamed campaign happy chat with Harris. In a classically clumsy correction that fixed nothing, Winfrey said that was simply untrue. She wasn’t paid $1 million by Kamala's campaign. Her production company was paid $1 million by Kamala's campaign.
The smartest thing Harris may have done is duck the California gubernatorial race that eager media kept saying she’s been seriously pondering ever since Jan. 20, when she had to pretend to listen to every one of the 2,885 words in Donald Trump’s critical second Inaugural Address.
But here's a hard truth: Unlike the performative acts of congressional members, being governor of a state close to voters involves actual work, weighty decisions, and hands-on attention to detail virtually hourly. If Harris has a forte, hard work is not it. And the truth is, deep down, Kamala Harris is shallow.
Yes, the U.S. Senate is where her party almost always goes to staff its presidential tickets. Think about it: Biden, Obama, Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Bentsen, Mondale, McGovern, Humphrey, Muskie, Johnson, Kennedy….
Without evidence, “experts” said Harris would have been the automatic California front-runner. Already in the Democrat primary are former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and fellow Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra, who pass for stars there.
Here's how Harris spent six whole months pondering the governor’s race: She did not consult with prominent state Democrats. She did not consult with all-important state union leaders.
She did not attend the recent state Democrat convention called to plot next year’s plans. Harris sent a pro forma three-minute video.
Harris did, however, give a speech in Australia, which has few California voters but did offer a nice appearance fee. She also attended friends’ weddings in London and back East. And Harris also made the Met Gala in New York City.
Harris, who did nothing as Biden’s appointed border czar to stem the flood of millions of illegal immigrants, called the Los Angeles riots “overwhelmingly peaceful” and said President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops there was “a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos.”
In her non-candidacy announcement, Harris said:
For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office. 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.
Fellow California Democrats were not all that excited about Harris’ political plans or lack thereof. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has her own serious problems seeking reelection in 2026, said: “I have the utmost respect for her making a decision like that and will be very interested to see how she continues in public service.”
And there’s good reason for such meh. In 2024, Harris received almost two million fewer votes in her home state than Delaware’s Joe Biden got there in 2020.
Harris hopes the “for now” words stoke continued interest in her career plans, like, oh, say, running for president again in 2028. However, that wouldn't be a gimme either.
Nationally, Democrats are in total disarray. Remembering the presidential election successes of Govs. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, some other ambitious Democrats are already assembling among governors, including her slick San Francisco pal, Gavin Newsom, who's term-limited. Bouncy Tim Walz also wants to offer himself.
But here’s the reality: Kamala Harris has actually never earned a single Democrat presidential primary vote. She dropped out long before any voting in 2020 after Tulsi Gabbard destroyed her in a debate, and then Nancy Pelosi appointed her over the elected Biden in 2024.
Harris is simply not going to seek the presidency and lose a third time. She’s going to milk the potential as long as possible, or maybe a little too long. Then she'll detect the reality, or donors will clue her in, and Harris will say she can accomplish more in (comfortable) private life.
Harris' tossed-salad speeches and serial gaffes (she called North Korea an ally and said 220 million Americans died from COVID) are not promising launching pads. Nor is being a key collaborator in the long coverup of Joe Biden's Bernie's Weekend.
And while there is precedent, losing presidential candidates not named Richard Nixon rarely get second chances.
“For now” is the standard PR tease designed to maintain interest among media and on the speaking circuits. Imagine the banquet introduction absent any possibility of a future President Harris: “Ladies and gentlemen, all we’ve got for you as speaker tonight is the first female vice president to lose her own election and decide not to try again.”
The tease about the future is also necessary because — Oh, look! — Harris has a book coming out next month called “107 Days.” It’s supposed to be the inside story of her botched bid to become the second black president. You might detect a publicity tour.
Simon & Schuster claims the Harris tome was written by someone “with candor, a unique perspective, and the pace of a page-turning novel.” So, a ghost-writer.
Not many politicians would publicly celebrate the launch anniversary of their losing national campaign. But then, there's a book to hype:
One year ago today, I began my campaign for President of the United States.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 21, 2025
Over the 107 days of our race, I had the opportunity and honor to travel our nation and meet with Americans who were fighting for a better future. And today, millions of Americans continue to stand up… pic.twitter.com/DfppWIIrCy
Harris has played a prominent role in national politics for nearly a decade. But she told Stephen Colbert she opted out “for now” because politics is “broken,” which some politicians might see as an opportunity, not an excuse. Harris also criticized the Republican-controlled Congress for “capitulating” to the Republican president.
Kamala Harris then explained herself as only Kamala Harris can:
It is important I think that in this moment where people have become so deflated and despondent and afraid, afraid, that those of us who have the ability — which I do right now, not being in an office where I’m campaigning for that office — to be out there and to talk with folks and remind them of their power.
