Does Kamala Harris plan to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California if Biden loses to Trump?
Vice President Kamala Harris has joked that she may return to California to run for governor if she and President Joe Biden lose the 2024 election, a new report shows.
Politico quotes two people familiar with Harris’ comments, but the vice president’s office predictably denied the report.
“That did not happen,” Harris spokesperson Kirsten Allen said. “In November, the vice president will prepare for his inauguration for the second term of the Biden-Harris administration.”
The race to succeed current California Governor Gavin Newsom will take place in 2026, but there is no clear Democratic successor.
Harris would face a crippling political setback if she and Biden lose the 2024 presidential election, affecting her own ambitions to one day become president of the United States herself.
Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris on the campaign trail
Newsom also has presidential ambitions, as well as his political activities, but has put them on hold for now after Biden ultimately concluded he would run for re-election with Harris still on the ballot.
“It’s the Biden-Harris administration. …Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned when it comes to presidents and vice presidents. I was lieutenant governor, so I’m a little subjective,” Newsom told Meet the Press, before admitting that challenging Harris for the presidency “isn’t going to happen.”
Both Biden and Harris are struggling with record low approval ratings, but Harris remains one of the most unpopular vice presidents in modern history with her approval ratings in the mid-30s.
Harris and Newsom both circled the idea of running against each other in the 2015 race for California governor.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event with US President Joe Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Pennsylvania
Both politicians were protégés of Willie Brown, the very powerful former state chairman and mayor of San Francisco, and both were seen as rising stars in California’s Democratic party.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D_CA) eventually withdrew from the Senate, leaving a seat open for one of the politically ambitious figures.
Harris ultimately chose to run for Senate, while Newsom ran for governor.
Harris later joked that she felt she could have defeated Newsom in that race for governor.
Governor Gavin Newsom during a press conference
US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House
“I would have won, wasn’t that clear?” she said with a laugh during a 2019 New Yorker profile interview.
If Harris loses and runs for governor in 2024, it would mirror the decision of Richard Nixon, who ran for governor of California in 1962 after losing the 1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy .
Nixon also lost his governor’s race before running for president again in 1968 and winning.