After her losing bid for President, Kamala Harris is preparing to re-enter the political scene.
Despite her disappointing loss in the 2024 United States Presidential Election, Kamala Harris’s political career is undeniably impressive. Onto the next chapter, both ends of the political spectrum have begun to wonder: what is next for Harris?
Harris’ Education and Early Life
Born and raised in Oakland, California, Harris left to receive her undergraduate degree from Howard University in Washington D.C.. Harris was not gone for long. After graduating from Howard, a Historically Black University, Harris returned to the Golden State.
Finishing her law degree at the University of California College of Law, San Francisco, she began practicing law soon after.
Harris earned her Juris Doctor in 1989 and was admitted to the California Bar in 1990. Soon after, she launched her career in law at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
As an attorney in Alameda Harris specialized in prosecuting cases involving drug trafficking and child sexual assault. In the decade following her hire at the District Attorney’s office, she was elected San Francisco District Attorney. Elected in 2003, she took over in 2004.
Following her two terms as DA, Harris was later elected as California Attorney General. Harris is the first Black and South Asian American woman to assume the role in the state’s history.
Harris as California Attorney General
As California Attorney General, Harris handled various controversial cases and her positions were not always popular. The most notable positions that Harris took in her career included pushing for homeowner protections, opposition of the death penalty, reform in the California Criminal Justice system such as curbing recidivism, anti-truancy, support of clean power initiatives, and urged transparency among for-profit colleges and universities.
Harris’s first major case as the California DA aroused mixed opinions. Declining to pursue the death penalty for a man accused of killing an undercover police officer, Californians were upset. She defended her decision in her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime.” “The broadly held assumption that simply increasing the penalty for any crime will automatically deter more people from committing the crime is a myth” she said. “We have to understand why long sentences alone are not sufficient to rock the crime pyramid for many types of crimes.”
Harris’ campaign for Attorney General advocated for progressivism in office. However, her tenure as AG has been criticized for its lack of progressivism.
In an OP-Ed for the New York Times in Jan. 2019, law professor Lara Bazelon criticized the notion that Harris was a progressive prosecutor. Bazelon claimed that Harris was on the wrong side of history for the campaign she was crafting. She wrote “Time after time, when progressives urged her [Harris] to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney.” She continued, “the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent.”
The Race for Presidency
In Jan. of 2019 Harris announced her campaign for presidency. Harris intended to use her experienced as AG as leverage in her campaign. With her prosecutor skill set, she was determined to defeat Donald Trump. She told the audience at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner that year, “We’ve got to hold this guy [Donald Trump] accountable by prosecuting the case in front of the American people against four more years of this administration.”
Harris’s first campaign gained traction among democrats but her popularity declined as issues in her admin arose. Cracks in Harris’s campaign crumbled during her mission to win the battleground state Iowa in 2020. In Iowa, voters learned of mistreatment of staffers and lack of organization within the campaign. In the resignation letter obtained by the New York Times of Iowa state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher, she wrote, “This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.”
Before campaigning on the national scale, Harris served as a United States Senator in California. As the second black woman to serve on the US Senate, she focused heavily on children’s causes. Her campaign advocated the same sentiments of her earlier career as District Attorney and Attorney General in the Golden State. Harris served in the senate until assuming her role as Vice President alongside President Joe Biden.
Serving as VP, Harris advocated for reproductive rights and the codification of voting rights protections across the country. The work Harris accomplished as VP echoed her following bid for President in 2024. If elected, Harris pledged to sign legislation that the Trump admin undid. Restoring the federal right to abortion, lowering prescription drug costs, and addressing the nation’s housing shortage were all included. Harris had only 107 days to campaign after President Biden dropped out of the race. In November, her campaign fell short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
The Road Forward
Harris took some time off to cope with the shortcomings of her 2024 presidential campaign. Democrats speculate that it is likely Harris will return to work very soon. Will Harris return to her legal work or stay in politics? Her colleagues are divided.
Joel Goldstein is an expert in vice presidency and law professor at St. Louis University. Goldstein told NPR that there are 3 possible options for Harris in the coming years. What are those options? Another presidential campaign in 2028, A run for Governor of California in 2026, or something completely unrelated to holding office.
Of the 3 options, her contemporaries seem to think that a bid for Governor may be her first choice.
An April 10 article published by the New York Times says Harris is debating another run at President or running for California Governor in the midterm elections. Allies said, “She can run for governor or president, but not both.”
Sources have told Politico Magazine the same. In an exclusive article from March, Politico reported that she told another attendee at a pre-Oscars event she attended that she would make her decision to run for governor by the end of the summer and has since echoed the same sentiment to allies and aides. The end of summer is still months away, Americans will be left wondering for a bit longer.
Bids for California Governor
In the time being, Californians have begun acquainting themselves with the other potential candidates for governor. As Gavin Newsom leaves in 2026, seven democrats and one republican have already announced their intention to replace him: Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), Former State Controller Betty Yee (D), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis (D), Former Orange County Representative Katie Porter (D), Entrepreneur Stephen j. Cloobeck (D), Former State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D), and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D).
The future of Harris’s career has been subject to intense speculation after her loss in November. Americans will have to wait and see what’s next for the accomplished former Vice President Kamala Harris.
