Kamala Harris isn’t going away

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“Nice to meet you, Madam President,” Kamala Harris said, shaking hands with the Coahoma Community College student body representative on her surprise stop by the campus on Thursday afternoon.

Harris likes that disarming joke. She was the biggest political figure to come across this underfunded school in the Mississippi Delta, the grass so dry it crunched as she walked with a gathering of stunned students for a group picture.

“You don’t know how many people this uplifts,” said Don Green, who followed Harris that afternoon from the college to a rural health clinic in Clarksdale, most famous for being the site of the legendary Crossroads of the Blues.

Mike Cavanaugh, a sophomore at the University of Mississippi and president of the campus’ College Democrats, spoke ahead of Harris at a rally that day and answered her questions about voter registration during his brief chat with her on the photo line. “Young people are very excited,” he said.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” is one of the lines Harris used several times on the stump in Mississippi as she campaigned for Democrat Scott Colom, whose challenge to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is drawing a new burst of national attention and outside money.

“There are so many people who were devastated with the outcome of that election — for good reason, for really good reason,” Harris told CNN backstage before her speech at the rally and two days after her 62nd birthday. “That pain, it lingers, because every day we are witnessing events that we know didn’t have to happen. Could have been different.”

After the interview ended, Harris asked to go back on the record.

“The American people want leaders who aren’t just occupied with looking in the mirror. They want leaders who are looking at the people, you know?” she said. “And they can tell the difference.”

Much of the political insider world has been clear in not wanting Harris to run for president in 2028, or really not wanting to hear from her again, ever. Even before Democrats’ horror year of Joe Biden’s collapse, the contortions over Gaza that she’s still struggling with and Donald Trump’s return, Harris was never good about cultivating donors or keeping aides from fleeing her overly cautious style and the constant infighting that followed.

Yet with her stops in Mississippi and across the country, she’s hearing from many Democratic campaigns who believe having her around helps — and lots of voters who are turning out to show they agree. All told, she’ll end the midterms with more campaign appearances than Barack Obama, and after a late flurry that includes Wisconsin and Georgia this week, more than almost any potential top-tier 2028 candidate.

Several close to the former vice president and 2024 presidential nominee told CNN they believe when she keeps saying she’s thinking about running again, what that means is that after months of soaking up the superfans who bought tickets to her book tour, she hasn’t ruled it out.

But not killing the option is different from pursuing it, whether lining up staff or crafting a new agenda, and Harris acknowledged that her time-treading answers about not having made up her mind can only go on so long. But asked if that means six months or even a year, she said, “I don’t know.”

“I go back and forth. I honestly go back and forth,” Harris said of which way she’s leaning. “There’s so many factors.”

What Harris does know, two years after losing, is that she’s less interested in the game of inches that presidential primaries tend to be.

“I’ll be very specific,” she said. “If I run, my motivation is not to beat other Democrats. It’s to actually do the job.”

Privately, she’s been known to do her wry stare at comments from other Democrats who say she shouldn’t run – convenient, she says, since that would mean they didn’t have to run against her.

“I’m sure there are many who think that I should just sit at home and eat bonbons and cook Doug’s favorite foods,” she said, brushing off the Wall Street Journal article reporting that her husband, Doug Emhoff, had privately told some people that he preferred she didn’t run. “I could cook Doug’s favorite foods and do this.”

Harris said Emhoff was upset at his feelings being portrayed inaccurately. According to one person who has spoken directly with him, his more precise feeling is that the moves the two of them have been making were not done with a plan to run again.

“I feel so strongly and therefore am compelled, and maybe propelled, into doing this, because I know that I can help,” she added. “And how can I sit at home in the comfort of my home when I know there are things I can do to help? I don’t know any other life but that – that’s my point. I don’t know any life that is not about, ‘There’s a problem, what can I do to fix it?’”

When Harris talks about “turning pain into purpose,” that means one thing to frustrated voters in the final days of these midterm campaigns, like the retired plumber who shouted “You told us so!” as she ripped Trump’s record in the gym at Columbus High School.

It can mean another to the woman who was herself the candidate Trump beat, even as she kept up the smiles pouring drinks behind the bar at another stop in New Hampshire on Saturday. Around this time two years ago, Harris was calling around to make sure old friends would be with her to celebrate back on the quad at Howard University . She stopped her remarks on Thursday to call back to the man, “Yes, brother, I did.”

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Harris did not, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, hit the Hamptons fundraising circuit this summer. She has not, as had been proposed in an internal memo circulated among her advisers, launched an extensive engagement tour championing Black voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision .

She spent much of the last year on an extended book tour that took her to 27 states and made her millions more than expected. She sold one of the X accounts she controlled to a partnership that netted her more money.

Yet she kept working the phones, whether calling a range of advocates and asking what she could have done differently in her abbreviated presidential run, or checking in with candidates like Texas Senate Democratic nominee James Talarico, to whom she offered some advice over how to manage the ongoing criticism from his former primary opponent , Rep. Jasmine Crockett, whom she endorsed before he won.

Her prospective opponents aren’t waiting on her.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has discussed a plan to launch his campaign shortly after the December meeting of the Democratic Governors Association, when he’ll officially wrap up his stint as its chair. After months of public denials while maintaining a national travel schedule, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has started telling people that after November he’s going to take another look at running for president.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have been all over the country stumping for candidates, including in early states, as aides make sure to remind reporters each time they add more stops. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has quietly banked $20 million and started thinking through a South Carolina and Super Tuesday-focused strategy.

Operatives associated with multiple likely contenders are assembling opposition research files on expected opponents and asking around for suggestions of staff to hire. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her former running mate, is already saying his advice for the future of the Democratic Party is “pick Pete Buttigieg” (which Harris said she hadn’t seen).

Harris’ motorcade is now just two cars, no sirens. She flies commercial. She pays for staff and security out of the limited fundraising she’s still doing off her old campaign email list, which left her and advisers having to pick between stops she was asked to make and forcing her to stack several virtual appearances into a day she’ll spend this week holed up in a hotel room with a computer instead.

“I have more access, you know? It’s like, the bubble is smaller, and that’s nice. Or there’s not a bubble,” she said.

As for candidates like Rob Sand , running for governor in Iowa, or Adam Hamilton , running for Senate in Kansas, who’ve said they don’t want her to come, Harris says she doesn’t take that personally.

“ Oh, I want them to do whatever they need to do to win. I mean that sincerely,” Harris told CNN. “I have run for local, state, and national office. I am not naïve. And I want to win, and I respect whatever decisions they need to make in order to do that.”

Nor was she interested in drawing a line against candidates like Angie Nixon , the Democratic nominee for Senate in Florida who said she joined the Democratic Socialists of America specifically as part of launching her campaign, and who will be part of one of Harris’s virtual events this week.

Asked how big of a role the DSA should have in Democrats’ future, Harris said, “We are, as we say, a big tent, and I don’t think anybody should be kicked out.”

Mississippi won’t be an early stop on the 2028 presidential calendar. But its electorate could offer a preview of what might await Harris in South Carolina, which is set to host the first Democratic primary again and where Black voters are critical.

“The conventional wisdom,” she said in Mississippi, is, “‘Those are red states, we can’t win there, therefore we won’t go there,’ as opposed to reconditioning ourselves to think about the fact that there are a lot of people who live here who actually care about the things we care about and deserve to be heard and deserve to have us spend our time and resources sitting with them and listening to them.”

Harris first connected with Colom in January, after Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democrat sent to Washington from Mississippi, got them on the phone when she brought her book tour to Jackson. Colom’s campaign to unseat Hyde-Smith, in a state Harris lost to Trump by 23 points, has drawn increasing buzz and now outside spending from both Democratic- and GOP-aligned groups.

Still several Colom consultants initially opposed having Harris join campaign events, worried about nationalizing the race and bringing in a candidate known for losing. With some encouragement, Colom overruled them and called her directly to ask.

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who told CNN that he’s considering a presidential run and for months was a main engine of getting Democrats to focus on Colom’s race, drew 100 people when he came to the state two weeks ago. Harris had over 1,000 on their feet in the gym, with an RSVP list that had to be closed because of the fire marshal – even after a sudden decision to bar holding the event at a local college forced a last-minute venue change.

“In this community, it transcends the fact that she lost the last election,” Thompson told CNN while waiting for her to arrive at the community college.

Black maternal mortality was a top issue for Harris when she was vice president. But when he’s campaigning with a focus on 400,000 people in the state without health insurance, rural hospitals closing and mothers dying waiting for a limited number of ambulances to be able to get them, Colom said he saw enormous value having Harris help draw a dozen reporters from across the state to a maternal health care clinic that’s struggling to cover costs.

“The question is: why does Vice President Harris care more about healthcare in our hospitals than our junior senator? If she cares more than our junior senator, I want to bring attention to that issue because that matters,” Colom told CNN after the rally. “You see how many people showed up, you see the excitement. People care about folks that are going to fight for the people.”

In Mississippi, as in Harris’ other stops, the memory of her loss cuts two ways.

“There’s people that think that she got the raw end of the deal,” said Chris Miller, the former chair of the Clark County Democrats in Nevada, who was an early supporter of her 2020 presidential campaign and attended the rally she did with the powerful Culinary Workers Union on behalf of her longtime supporter, state Attorney General Aaron Ford, running for governor. “There’s a feeling that if she wants to run, she should run.”

Patrick Gaspard, who was Obama’s first political director at the White House and has recently been informally advising a number of rising new voices in the Democratic Party including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was part of the Colom kitchen cabinet encouraging him to bring Harris in.

Videoing the crowd’s reaction to her on stage on his iPhone in Columbus on Thursday night, Gaspard said that has to be factored into any 2028 math, especially at a moment when voters around the country are making clear that they feel abandoned by the people who read tipsheets in green rooms.

“When Muhammad Ali was trying to regain the heavyweight crown, there were a lot of people who were saying they didn’t want him fighting again, they didn’t want him in the ring,” Gaspard told CNN. “They were saying that not because they were worried that Muhammad Ali would fall flat on his face — they were worried he would win.”

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“很高兴见到您，总统女士，”卡马拉·哈里斯周四下午突然造访科阿霍马社区学院时，一边说着，一边与该校学生代表握手。

哈里斯很喜欢这个令人忍俊不禁的玩笑。她是迄今为止到访这所位于密西西比三角洲、资金匮乏的学校的最有名的政治人物。当她和一群目瞪口呆的学生们一起走在草地上，准备拍摄集体照时，干枯的草地发出嘎吱嘎吱的声响。

“你不知道这能激励多少人，”唐·格林说道。那天下午，他跟随哈里斯从大学来到克拉克斯代尔的一家乡村诊所，克拉克斯代尔最著名的就是这里是传奇的蓝调十字路口所在地。

密西西比大学二年级学生、该校民主党学生会主席迈克·卡瓦诺当天在集会上先于哈里斯发言，并在合影时与她短暂交谈，回答了她关于选民登记的问题。“年轻人非常兴奋，”他说。

“事情本不必如此，”这是哈里斯在密西西比州为民主党人斯科特·科洛姆助选时多次使用的一句话。科洛姆挑战参议员辛迪·海德-史密斯，这引起了全国的关注和外部资金的涌入。

“很多人都对那次选举的结果感到无比失望——这是有充分理由的，真的有充分理由，”哈里斯在集会上发表讲话前，在她62岁生日两天后接受CNN采访时说道。“这种痛苦挥之不去，因为我们每天都在目睹一些本不该发生的事情。本来可以不一样的。”

采访结束后，哈里斯要求重新进行录音。

“美国人民想要的领导人，不是那种只顾照镜子的领导人。他们想要的是真正关心人民的领导人，你知道吗？”她说道，“而且人民能够分辨出其中的区别。”

政治圈内人士普遍明确表示，他们不希望哈里斯参加2028年总统竞选，或者说，他们根本不想再听到她的消息。即便在民主党遭遇拜登崩盘、加沙问题引发的棘手局面（至今仍让她焦头烂额）、特朗普卷土重来之前，哈里斯就一直不擅长维系捐款人关系，也无法阻止助手们因为她过于谨慎的作风以及随之而来的持续不断的内讧而离她而去。

然而，随着她在密西西比州和全国各地的行程，许多民主党竞选团队都表示，她的到访对她大有裨益——许多选民也纷纷投票表示赞同。总而言之，她在本次中期选举中的竞选活动次数将超过巴拉克·奥巴马，而且在本周威斯康星州和佐治亚州等地的密集竞选活动之后，她的活动次数将超过几乎所有潜在的2028年总统候选人。

几位与这位前副总统兼 2024 年总统候选人关系密切的人士告诉 CNN，他们认为，当她不断表示自己正在考虑再次参选时，这意味着在几个月来享受了购买她新书巡回签售门票的超级粉丝们的热情之后，她并没有排除再次参选的可能性。

但放弃这个选项和真正去争取是两回事，无论是组建团队还是制定新的议程，哈里斯都承认，她这种关于尚未做出决定的拖延性回答不可能一直持续下去。但当被问及这是否意味着六个月甚至一年时，她说：“我不知道。”

“我一直在犹豫不决。说实话，我一直在犹豫不决，”哈里斯谈到自己的倾向时说。“这其中有很多因素。”

哈里斯在败选两年后明白，她对总统初选那种毫厘必争的博弈已经不太感兴趣了。

“我会说得非常具体，”她说。“如果我参选，我的动机不是为了击败其他民主党人，而是为了真正做好这份工作。”

私下里，她经常对其他民主党人说她不应该参选的评论嗤之以鼻——她说，这很方便，因为那样他们就不用和她竞争了。

“我确信很多人认为我应该待在家里吃点糖果，做道格最爱吃的菜，”她说道，对《华尔街日报》报道她丈夫道格·埃姆霍夫私下告诉一些人他更希望她不要参选的文章不以为然。“我可以一边做道格最爱吃的菜，一边做这件事。”

哈里斯表示，埃姆霍夫对自己的感受被错误解读感到不满。据一位曾与埃姆霍夫直接交谈过的人士透露，埃姆霍夫更准确的看法是，他们两人最近的举动并非出于再次竞选的计划。

“我对此感触很深，因此不得不这样做，或许可以说是被某种力量驱使着去做，因为我知道我能帮上忙，”她补充道。“我知道自己可以做些什么来提供帮助，怎么能安坐家中呢？我不知道除了这样之外还有什么其他的生活方式——这就是我的观点。我不知道还有什么生活方式不是围绕着‘出了问题，我能做些什么来解决它？’”

当哈里斯谈到“将痛苦转化为目标”时，对于在本次中期选举最后几天感到沮丧的选民来说，这意味着一件事，就像那位退休水管工在哥伦布高中体育馆里抨击特朗普的政绩时高喊“你早就告诉过我们了！”一样。

对这位曾被特朗普击败的女性来说，这或许意味着另一番景象。周六，在新罕布什尔州的另一处竞选活动中，她一边在吧台后斟酒，一边保持着微笑。大约两年前的这个时候，哈里斯还在四处打电话，确认老朋友们能否和她一起回到霍华德大学的校园庆祝胜利。周四，她停下讲话，再次向特朗普喊话：“是的，兄弟，我做到了。”

伊芙琳·霍克斯坦/路透社

与宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗、伊利诺伊州州长JB·普里茨克和佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫不同，哈里斯今年夏天没有前往汉普顿进行筹款活动。此前，她的顾问们曾在一份内部备忘录中提议，在最高法院就卡莱斯案作出裁决后，她没有发起大规模的巡回宣传活动，以支持黑人的投票权。

去年，她大部分时间都在进行巡回签售，足迹遍布27个州，收入远超预期，达到数百万美元。她还将自己掌控的一个X账户出售给了合伙企业，从中获利更多。

但她仍然不停地打电话，无论是给各种支持者打电话，询问在她短暂的总统竞选中，她本可以做些什么不同的事情，还是与像德克萨斯州参议院民主党候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科这样的候选人联系，她就如何应对来自他之前的初选对手、众议员贾斯敏·克罗克特的持续批评向他提供了一些建议，她在塔拉里科获胜前曾支持过克罗克特。

她的潜在对手们并没有等着她。

肯塔基州州长安迪·贝希尔已讨论过一项计划，将在12月民主党州长协会会议结束后不久启动竞选活动，届时他将正式卸任该协会主席一职。马里兰州州长韦斯·摩尔在数月公开否认参选后，仍保持着全国巡回访问的行程，但现在他开始向公众透露，11月之后他将再次考虑竞选总统。

亚利桑那州参议员马克·凯利和前交通部长皮特·布蒂吉格一直在全国各地为候选人助选，包括在早期初选州，他们的助手们每次增加行程都会提醒记者。新泽西州参议员科里·布克悄悄筹集了2000万美元，并开始制定以南卡罗来纳州和“超级星期二”为重点的竞选策略。

与多位可能参选者相关的幕僚正在收集有关预期对手的反对派研究资料，并四处打听可以雇佣的幕僚人选。她的前竞选搭档、明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹已经表示，他对民主党未来的建议是“选择皮特·布蒂吉格”（哈里斯表示她还没见过布蒂吉格）。

哈里斯的车队现在只有两辆车，没有警笛。她乘坐民航。她用有限的筹款来支付工作人员和安保费用，这些筹款仍然来自她之前的竞选邮件列表。这导致她和顾问们不得不从她被邀请的行程中做出选择，并迫使她把好几个线上活动安排在一天之内，而她本周大部分时间都只能待在酒店房间里对着电脑。

“我的社交圈子更大了，你知道吗？感觉就像圈子变小了，这很好。或者说，根本就没有圈子了，”她说。

至于像爱荷华州州长候选人罗布·桑德或堪萨斯州参议员候选人亚当·汉密尔顿这样表示不希望她来访的候选人，哈里斯说她不会把这当成针对她个人的事。

“哦，我希望他们为了赢得选举不惜一切代价。我是真心这么想的，”哈里斯告诉CNN。“我竞选过地方、州和国家级公职。我并不天真。我渴望胜利，也尊重他们为了赢得选举需要做出的任何决定。”

她也无意与安吉·尼克松（Angie Nixon）这样的候选人划清界限。安吉·尼克松是佛罗里达州的民主党参议员候选人，她说她加入美国民主社会主义者协会就是为了启动她的竞选活动，她本周将参加哈里斯的一场线上活动。

当被问及民主社会主义者协会（DSA）在民主党的未来中应该扮演多大的角色时，哈里斯说：“正如我们所说，我们是一个大帐篷，我认为不应该把任何人踢出去。”

密西西比州不会是2028年总统大选的早期站点。但该州的选民或许能预示哈里斯在南卡罗来纳州可能面临的境况。南卡罗来纳州将再次举办民主党初选，而黑人选民在该州至关重要。

她在密西西比州说：“人们普遍的看法是，‘那些都是红色州，我们不可能在那里获胜，所以我们不会去那里。’而不是重新思考这样一个事实：这里生活着很多人，他们真正关心我们所关心的事情，他们的声音应该被听到，他们应该得到我们的时间和资源，我们愿意花时间和资源与他们坐在一起，倾听他们的心声。”

今年1月，哈里斯首次与科洛姆取得联系。当时，密西西比州唯一一位民主党籍众议员本尼·汤普森在哈里斯前往杰克逊市进行新书巡回宣传时，促成了两人的电话会面。科洛姆竞选密西西比州众议员，挑战现任众议员海德-史密斯。哈里斯在该州曾以23个百分点的差距败给特朗普。科洛姆的竞选活动日益受到关注，如今也吸引了来自民主党和共和党相关团体的外部资金支持。

尽管如此，科洛姆的几位顾问最初还是反对哈里斯参加竞选活动，他们担心这会使竞选全国化，而且引入一位众所周知的败选候选人。但在一些人的鼓励下，科洛姆否决了他们的意见，直接打电话给哈里斯询问。

佐治亚州参议员拉斐尔·沃诺克曾告诉CNN，他正在考虑竞选总统。几个月来，他一直是推动民主党人关注科洛姆竞选的主要力量。两周前，沃诺克到访佐治亚州，吸引了100名支持者。而哈里斯的竞选活动则吸引了超过1000名支持者在体育馆内起立，由于消防部门的要求，不得不关闭预约名单——即便是在当地一所大学突然被禁止举办活动，迫使主办方临时更换场地之后，情况依然如此。

“在这个社区，她上次选举落败的事实已经无关紧要了，”汤普森在社区大学等候她到来时告诉 CNN。

哈里斯担任副总统时，黑人孕产妇死亡率是她关注的重点议题。但科洛姆表示，当他竞选时，重点关注的是该州40万没有医疗保险的人、乡村医院倒闭以及孕妇因救护车数量有限而等待救援却最终死亡等问题时，他认为哈里斯的帮助意义重大，她组织了十几名来自全州各地的记者前往一家难以维持运营的孕产妇保健诊所进行采访。

“问题是：为什么哈里斯副总统比我们年轻的参议员更关心我们医院的医疗保健？如果她比我们年轻的参议员更关心，我想让大家关注这个问题，因为这很重要，”科洛姆在集会后告诉CNN。“你看来了多少人，你看大家有多兴奋。人们关心那些会为人民而战的人。”

在密西西比州，就像在哈里斯的其他地方一样，人们对她失去亲人的记忆是双重的。

“有些人认为她受到了不公平的对待，”内华达州克拉克县民主党前主席克里斯·米勒说道。米勒是她2020年总统竞选的早期支持者，也曾参加过她与实力强大的餐饮工人联盟共同为她的长期支持者、内华达州总检察长亚伦·福特（当时正在竞选州长）举行的集会。“人们觉得，如果她想参选，就应该去参选。”

帕特里克·加斯帕德曾是奥巴马在白宫的第一位政治主任，最近一直在非正式地为民主党内一些冉冉升起的新星提供建议，其中包括纽约市市长佐兰·马姆达尼。他也是科洛姆核心团队的成员之一，鼓励科洛姆将哈里斯招入麾下。

周四晚上，加斯帕德在哥伦布用他的 iPhone 拍摄了观众对她在舞台上的反应。他说，这必须纳入任何 2028 年的考量，尤其是在全国各地的选民都明确表示他们感到被那些在后台阅读竞选策略的人抛弃的时候。

“当穆罕默德·阿里试图重夺重量级拳王头衔时，很多人都说他们不想让他再打比赛，不想让他回到拳台上，”加斯帕德告诉CNN。“他们这么说并不是担心穆罕默德·阿里会惨败——他们担心的是他会赢。”