Kamala 2028? Insiders reveal Harris may still have her sights set on the White House

Vice President Kamala Harris is now enjoying a long vacation in Hawaii after her dramatic defeat by newly elected President Donald Trump.

But political insiders who know her say she may already be considering a possible return to the campaign trail.

“Of course she’s going to try to run again,” a well-connected Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com, citing Harris’ ambition as a factor.

It means her devastating loss to Trump may not spell the end of her political career.

Polls show Harris as the front-runner for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.

She leads with 41 percent of Democrats in a Puck News/Echelon Insights poll, while other possible candidates remain stuck in the numbers.

However, the poll also found that 59 percent of Democrats would look beyond Harris in looking for a champion to lead them out of the political wilderness.

Despite some hesitation, Harris has generated many sympathetic responses from professional Democrats in Washington.

They described her campaign as “nearly flawless” but said she struggled to break away from President Joe Biden’s record.

One quarterback compared her to the backup quarterback who was called in to win the football game after they were down in the fourth quarter.

“I think she did her best,” he said.

In 2028, Harris will still be only 63, young enough to make a political comeback, especially if Trump’s second term is a failure.

But strategists admit Harris will need to make some radical changes if she plans to be a future candidate for president.

US Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as administration staff cheer her on outside the White House in Washington.

The most glaring problem, they say, is her struggle to communicate.

“Even when she’s talking all the time, she doesn’t really say much at all,” one person said.

One Democratic communicator said her meteoric rise from district attorney to the Senate and vice president of the United States was partly responsible for her struggles as a candidate.

“This is someone who has had a meteoric rise, her Achilles heel has not been her own political identity, it has created a blanket of caution that has really confused her,” he said.

If Harris wanted to win again, she would have to finally define herself beyond her own ambition and ask questions about what she really believed in.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained in a recent podcast interview with Katie Couric that politics had changed significantly since 2019, when Harris last led a presidential primary.

Kamala Harris appears on The View

Any candidate for the future, she said, would do better to explain their vision for the country.

“You have to be fearless in the way you communicate, and the formats you communicate with, and that means everything,” she said.

Psaki rejected the viral gimmicks used by the Harris campaign during the campaign and sought to attract the attention of famous influencers and viral TikTok trends.

“The summer, which was cool, didn’t work. Young people did not show up,” she said.

One Democratic strategist agreed.

“Kamala can compete again and will hopefully improve as a messenger, but I think concerns about her ability to deliver a coherent message still remain,” he said.

More damaging than ever to her campaign were her left-wing positions she took during her 2019 campaign, such as banning plastic straws.

US President Joe Biden (left) and Vice President Kamala Harris on the Truman Balcony of the White House in Washington, DC

In 2028, Harris would have to explain why she took those previous positions on issues and explain to voters why she changed her mind.

“Her 2019 rhetoric came back to haunt her and she had no good explanation for why any of those positions had changed,” one consultant said.

Harris failed to differentiate herself from Biden and his record put her under pressure as she tried to deliver the message of a “new way forward.”

If Harris were to run again, a four-year separation could help her do so effectively, but she would have to explain what had changed and why, strategists said.

She would need a radical break from her cautious media approach to shed the perception and reveal the “real” Kamala Harris, they said.

An appearance on a feature-length podcast like Joe Rogan’s could be good for her brand, especially if she dropped her calculated and scripted answers to questions and was authentic.

Many on the left, however, are skeptical that the vice president has the political chops needed to run again.

Some celebrated the end of the Democratic Party’s monumental effort to make Harris their party’s next charismatic leader after five years of trying.

“It is almost impossible to imagine a candidate who loses as terribly as Kamala did, re-entering politics at the national level,” journalist Glenn Greenwald told DailyMail.com.

Greenwald argued that the only presidential candidate to lose so badly and make a political comeback was President Richard Nixon, after his narrow loss to John F. Kennedy.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, center, sits in conversation with black men at the Philly Cuts barbershop, Oct. 27, 2024, in Philadelphia

He estimated that Harris would likely “cash in” on her political achievements, with a book deal and high-paying speeches to corporate clients, or become a “token partner in a major law firm.”

Harris, he said, had no political future on a national platform because she proved she lacked critical political powers.

“For years until she was introduced as a Dem candidate, and now, after the election, everyone now recognized and recognizes that she has little to no political talent,” he said, adding that “no one believed she was a good candidate.” ‘

California Democrats are also speculating that Harris could potentially run for governor, now that current Gov. Gavin Newsom is term-limited.

A poll of California registered voters before the presidential election found that 46 percent said they would likely support her for governor, according to the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies survey co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

However, it is unclear whether Harris would even be interested in running for governor, as this could be seen as a step back from her role as vice president.

“Her only chance to re-enter politics would be as a state elected official from California and I doubt she wants that since she thought she was going to be president,” Greenwald said.