Is Kamala Harris Running Again? Voters Have Seen This Movie Before

New steps toward 2028 bring back old questions about Harris’s judgment, trustworthiness, and a national record that voters have already turned down.

The Comeback Nobody Asked For

Kamala Harris is stepping back into national politics, showing she is not done with presidential ambitions and thinks the country, or at least her party’s leaders, should consider her again. If this seems familiar, that’s because it is.

A recent Axios report describes several actions that appear to be the start of a 2028 campaign. Harris’s book tour now includes early primary states. She is reconnecting with Democratic National Committee insiders. Her public statements have changed, putting distance between herself and the administration she once supported. These moves seem intentional.

Harris’s challenge isn’t her ambition. It’s that voters have already judged her national record. What stands out is how quickly party leaders act as if the past few years no longer matter.

The Definition of Insanity, Applied

There’s an old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Harris’s quiet return to presidential politics brings that idea to mind.

Harris has already run for President, and voters made up their minds early. Her 2020 campaign lacked a clear message and lasting support. As Vice President, she never found a governing style that connected with people beyond staged events. When she took on the issue of the southern border, it quickly became a political problem. Her messaging turned defensive, the main issues stayed unsolved, and she became known more for process than results.

Democrats entered the 2024 election defending an unpopular status quo, and Harris was not just nearby—she was its most visible backup. Voters turned down the ticket, costing the party the White House and leaving them without a strong mandate. Swing-state voters stayed unconvinced, her approval ratings remained low, and the result was clear enough that it should have led to reflection, not a restart. Deciding to try again after that record takes a lot of selective memory.

A Party Torn Between Two Californians

There is another factor shaping this moment that is impossible to ignore: California.

If any Democrat wants Harris to stay out of the 2028 race, it’s Gavin Newsom. They share many donor networks, depend on similar political allies, and compete for influence in the same state, which has the most delegates in the Democratic primary.

Newsom has worked for years to become his party’s next generational leader. Harris, on the other hand, was very close to the presidency, close enough to think she could finish the job. For her, the temptation is clear. For Newsom, the problem is just as clear. Harris had her chance, got close, didn’t make it, and now risks crowding a race he thinks is finally his. That tension is not going away soon.

The Question She Can’t Dodge: What Did She Know About Biden?

A Harris campaign would not stand alone. It would bring back one of the most significant unresolved issues from the Biden years: public trust.

For months, voters saw President Biden struggle in unscripted moments and wondered who was telling them the truth. As Vice President, Harris had access that no Cabinet secretary or member of Congress could match. The White House pointed to the tradition of private meetings between the president and vice president, a closeness that makes it hard to claim ignorance. Whether it was a mistake or silence during Biden’s decline, the result was the same: voters felt misled.

In October 2024, Harris publicly supported Biden’s mental fitness and stamina, even as questions grew. More recently, while promoting her memoir, she criticized Democrats for what she called the recklessness of letting Biden decide whether to run for so long, but still described his problems as exhaustion, not incapacity. That difference might please party loyalists, but it is less convincing to voters who feel they were not told the whole truth.

Reinventing Herself by Attacking the System She Ran

As Harris returns to the spotlight, her tone has changed. She told party officials last week in Los Angeles that “both parties” are to blame, criticized the “status quo,” and said that the government has lost the public’s trust.

Those comments might work well with party insiders. But outside that setting, they raise a more challenging question: who does she think built the system she now criticizes?

Harris spent years in the system as a U.S. Senator, Vice President, and a top defender of the administration. Trying to present herself now as a frustrated reformer seems more convenient than genuine, and voters usually notice that change faster than politicians expect.

Can Democrats Win “Middle America” With A California Liberal?

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So, Does It Matter?

This matters because the country has already answered the question Harris is now asking again.

Voters had the chance to support Harris’s national leadership, and they said no, clearly enough that Democrats lost the White House and could not build lasting majorities. That was not a mistake; it was a clear decision. Nothing since then shows that the basics have improved. The record is longer, not shorter. The explanations are more strained, not more transparent. And the trust gap, especially about what people were told about the Biden administration’s health and ability, has only grown.

Voters usually do not want to rethink decisions they believe were correct. Asking them to accept a repeat would end differently is like asking them to forget what they already saw, and elections are decided by people who remember the results.

I guess as a final point, as a conservative, I would welcome a relish Harris as a nominee, for all of the reasons I mentioned above, and more.