‘Please Don’t’: Democratic Strategist Begs Kamala Harris Not To Run for President Again in 2028

ROCHENBERG: “... vice president has been instructing advisers and allies to keep her options open. That could be a possible 2028 presidential run or even a run for governor in her home state of California in two years. Harris has reportedly repeating in phone calls, quote, ‘I’m staying in the fight.’ Let’s talk about it now with our political panelists. Theryn Bond joins us now, a Democratic strategist and Luke Ball is a Republican strategist. So two different perspectives here. Welcome to you both. Theryn, we’ll start with you. Is this a good idea for VP Harris to continue her political ambitions?”
BOND: “Not to run for president again in 2028, please don’t. I can’t really speak for governor of California. Californians seem to support her significantly. We haven’t yet been able to measure what that support looks like after this current run she just had. That may be the only thing that she — I guess, may make sense for her to consider. But another shot at the presidency, I hope she doesn’t. And if she is relying on those same advisers that advised her this cycle, that’s not who I would listen to.”
KRAISMAN: “Luke, I mean, she lost in a landslide to Trump in this election. If she runs for governor of California, can she win that race?”
BALL: “Well, I think she might have a hand up in California because I think that’s one of the only states where she might actually have an edge. She’d have high name ID. But if she ran anywhere else in the country, I don’t think she’d be able to get elected to dog catcher, unfortunately. Because if I’m a donor, if I’m a Democrat, I’m looking at this race and I’m looking at the aftermath as we start to go through the autopsy of the campaign, and I’m seeing that we’re paying millions of dollars to celebrities to astroturf the campaign instead of spending that money on critical resources. Even like the DNC, if I’m on that side of the political aisle, I’m wondering why can’t we give that to staff members as opposed to sending it to celebrities? Paying $5,000 for having their nails done. Like the RNC went through this just over a year ago and we cleaned house ahead of the election. And I think that if I’m a Democrat strategist and I’m operating within the DNC, I’m having the same thought process. We have to have a come to Jesus meeting and figure out number one, who the heck is the leader of our party? Number two, what sort of drastic changes are we going to make to position ourselves to come up in this next upcoming midterm election and start to change the direction of the country from our perspective? So I don’t think Kamala Harris is going to have a shot at a national campaign anymore. Maybe she’d be able to find a home in California, but I think her national political spot —“