December 11, 2024
A "KAMALA COMEBACK" IN 2028? ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO WAY
Vice President Kamala Harris has to be the most miserable person in America right now.
Losing the 2024 presidential race to the reviled Donald Trump, Harris’s grieving will be prolonged and bitter – much like Hillary Clinton’s still is.
Harris realistically had one – AND ONLY ONE – chance to be president, and that was through a Biden-Harris re-election in 2024 and then the inevitable Biden removal/succession for disability in the second term (2025-29). Harris could not have won the White House by conventionally campaigning.
There can be no absolution. She blew through $1.5 billion in 110 days – and still lost to Trump. That, to the party’s Far eft base, is unforgivable. Her only path to redemption is to run and win in 2028. But that absolutely, positively will NOT happen. There’s no way the Dems will hit themselves over the head with the same hammer again.
She will not have the satisfaction of beating Trump, who is term-limited. She would have to run against J.D. Vance.
THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF: If a loser covets (or obsesses about) a comeback then he/she must go through the throes of the stages of grief. They are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
STAGE ONE: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Both Harris’ brief campaign and the cheerleading news media pilloried Trump as a facist, Hitler, an authoritarian and dire threat to democracy – and, of course, a “convicted felon,” which he is. The consultants and staffers told her she would win. So did the pollsters, who told Biden the same until Nancy Pelosi told them not to.
Their strategy was to make 2024 a CHOICE between chaos (Trump) and transparent gas-lighted misinformation (i.e. the border is closed, the economy is great, inflation is dropping, abortions will end). Gas lighting is uttering a lie, which the teller knows to be untrue, and expecting the hearer to believe it. Instead 2024 became a referendum on Biden-Harris’ incompetence. And the numbers moved every time Harris opened her mouth.
There were three seminal moments when Harris proved herself un-informed, unprepared and seemingly unfit for office. At the CNN debate she was asked if she had any faults, shortcomings or weaknesses. She replied that she had a “weakness – but really not a weakness” by “surrounding” herself with “smart” people. If she did so they were MIA in her campaign. She should have said she could have done more as “border czar.”
Then when asked what Harris-Walz would do different from Biden-Harris she said “there is not a thing that comes to mind.” Better to say nothing and be thought a fool than say something and prove it. And whenever she was asked if the economy was better in 2024 than under Trump she mumbled her programmed gibberish, never answering real questions. The VP appeared untrustworthy and never credible. And her VP pick of Tim Walz exemplifies her poor judgment.
EARLY 2028 POLLING: Forget about “turning the page” or being “unburdened by what has been.” Harris’s most memorable clichés from the campaign. The 2028 campaign began Nov. 6 and a Nov. 25 Emerson College poll had the Democratic field at 37 percent Harris, 35 undecided , 7, 3 and 3 for governors Gavin Newsom (CA), Gretchen Whitmer (MI) and Josh Shapiro (PA), 4 for Pete Buttigieg and 2 each for Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama. That’s 63 percent who already don’t want a Harris repeat.
Just imagine if Harris spends the next 4 years campaigning, having to talk about issues and policy, nag voters, bash Trump, show internal fortitude and stake out Woke/Left positions on everything? And raise $1 billion? She has nowhere to go but down.
One noteworthy result from Emerson is that governor J.B. Pritzker (IL) got less than one percent. Obviously they over-sampled Illinoisans.
There are no automatic second chances in presidential politics: You lose badly or unexpectedly or under-perform and you’re done and out. Harris would have been better positioned for 2028 if she had lost on a Biden-Harris ticket. Then she could blame Biden.
STAGE TWO: BLAME SOMEBODY ELSE. The pain (and anger) of losing an election is tripled by that of losing relevance. Twenty years of grinding work gone in an instant. A lifelong investment of time and money shot to hell. So after DENIAL it’s time for ANGER. It was poor messaging. It was misled and misinformed voters. It was my staff. It’s time for justification, validation and fabrication. IT’S NOT MY FAULT. I’m OK. I’ll be back.
STAGE THREE: The Nixon Syndrome surfaces. Self-pity combines with self-loathing to produce a frenzy of ongoing bad judgment. It’s I-must-run-for-something-somewhere-right-now. It’s BARGAINING with a Higher Power: Please give me a Do-Over and I won’t mess it up again.
Nixon narrowly lost to JFK in 1960 and, being a neurotic paranoid, felt he had to run for CA governor in 1962 so as to pre-empt the 1964 Republican presidential field. That proved disastrous as he lost to governor Pat Brown (D) by 250,000 votes. But Nixon was young, just 47 in 1960. By 1968 he was the least un-electable Republican and won the presidency with 43 percent. Harris is 60 and does not have an option to wait for 2032.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR (2026): If she commits, Harris would be the instant frontrunner for governor. CA politics is all about PITs – priority, identity and term-limits. Newsom is termed-out in 2026, and his succession squabble began in 2023. The top-tier contenders, all Democrats, are lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis, comptroller Betty Yee, ex-LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and ex-congresswoman Katie Porter … and maybe Harris. None will step aside if Harris runs.
For Wokesters it’s a time of despair. There’s a bi-racial woman ex-VP, an Asian woman, a Latino man and a White woman. The horror of choosing: So many “historic firsts.” Two autumn polls had Kounalakis, Villarigosa and Porter all around 10-13 percent and 60 percent undecided. So there is a path for Harris … if she can raise $20 million.
The big wrinkle is that CA has a top-two primary system. The top two June finishers, regardless of party, face-off in November. So Harris would certainly be in a runoff against another Democrat. And, as set forth in the CHART, Trump got 6,060,557 votes in CA on Nov. 5, up 54,039 over 2020. And Harris got 9,253,875, down 1,856,764 from Biden’s 2020 vote. And, if given a 2026 choice between Kamala and some other Democrat, those Republicans will NOT be voting for Harris.
Stages 4 and 5 are DEPRESSION, which is suffocating despair at seeing a life’s dream evaporate, and then ACCEPTANCE and moving on. Harris will languish in Stage 3 through 2028 – until she’s rejected in the primaries or beaten in the election. Watch her donors.
The premise of this column is whether Harris can comeback? She has no personal base of rabid supporters like Trump. And perhaps no fund-raising base. Time to just accept it.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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