When it comes to the 2028 presidential sweepstakes, Kamala Harris may be a nonstarter.
Yes, Harris ably served as vice president of the United States, U.S. senator and California attorney general. She valiantly stepped up to the late-breaking 2024 Democratic presidential nomination when Joe Biden’s presidency faltered.
She is eminently qualified to serve as president of the United States. In a perfect world, she should be sitting in the White House.
This is not a perfect world. This is Trump World. Harris lost the presidential race to Donald Trump, an unforgivable transgression.
A 2028 rerun for Harris has been speculated for months, but she has been coy about her plans. Then, during a recent fireside chat with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Harris pumped up the volume. Sharpton asked Harris if she planned to run again in 2028.
“Listen, I might,” she replied at Sharpton’s National Action Network annual convention in New York City. “I’m thinking about it.”
The crowd cheered.
She “served for four years being a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States. I spent countless hours in my West Wing office, footsteps away from the Oval Office,” she said. “I spent countless hours in the Oval Office and the Situation Room. I know what the job is, and I know what it requires.”
More cheers.
Some are not cheering. A prominent African American female politician was heard to say at a recent Chicago fundraiser: “If the Democrats want to win back the White House, they should nominate a straight, white man.”
Not female, Black, Latino, Asian or queer. Recent history, and the nation’s right-xenophobic-leaning mood, dictates that.
Long after Trump is gone, the racist and misogynist environment he has activated and fostered will grip our culture, perhaps for decades to come. In that mood, slavery is a lie. Diversity, equity and inclusion are a fraud. Immigrants, who helped build this nation, are now criminals.
Harris was imperfect, as all presidential contenders are, but she was also set up for failure.
Can a woman, especially an African American, be elected president of the United States? Last weekend, at the Power Rising summit in Chicago, 500 African American women leaders pondered that question.
Harris was the warmly received, marquee attraction. “There are still certain myths about what a woman can and cannot do in spite of what she actually does,” Harris declared during a Q&A session.
Some in the audience were “skeptical,” according to a report from Politico’s Illinois Playbook.
“I would love to see it, but I don’t think the country is ready. The country wasn’t ready for Hillary (Clinton), and she was the most qualified,” Monique Campbell, a nonprofit leader from Detroit, told Politico. “The country wasn’t ready for Kamala, and she was the most qualified. It’s about timing.”
The fact that Harris and Clinton, two highly qualified women, could lose to an amoral TV huckster tells us that American voters either refuse or are incapable of elevating a woman to the most powerful office in the world.
Harris remains popular, particularly among Black female voters. Yet, as we saw in 2024, that was not enough to carry her over the finish line.
It’s a grim reality. Trump’s MAGA movement is dragging racial progress back by decades, and it’s not done yet. They have “othered” women and people of color.
Anyone espousing progressive views will be suspect among American mainstream voters.
The argument goes that the GOP nominee will be a conservative, white male. You cannot rule out the idea that Trump, in his unique wisdom, will try to grab another presidential term. Experts laugh at the possibility, and it would most certainly go to the Supreme Court. With this court, dominated by Trump appointees, anything goes.
So where does that leave us? The boldface names being touted for presidential runs checked in to Sharpton’s event to showcase their credentials.
It was a bevy of governors, including Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Wes Moore from Maryland. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Members of Congress: Ro Khanna of California, Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Cory Booker of New Jersey. (California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who many view as a front-runner, could not attend due to a family obligation, Sharpton said.)
And Harris. One woman.
The biggest danger for the Democratic Party? That women and people of color won’t be activated to go to the polls to put yet another white man in the White House.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Wednesday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.
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