Kamala Harris is returning to the campaign trail to help Democrats in some of the tightest US midterm races, putting the former vice president back before voters as she weighs whether to make a third run for the presidency in 2028.
The Democratic Party’s unsuccessful 2024 standard-bearer has made relatively few public appearances this year. But with her party trying to break the Republican hold on Congress on November 3, Harris is rallying in Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, a return likely to renew questions about her political future as a crowded field of potential 2028 contenders takes shape. Colom is seeking to become the first Democratic US senator elected in Mississippi since 1982, and polls show an unusually tight race with Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. A 2028 campaign would also force Harris to revisit the Democrats’ chaotic 2024 race, when then-President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection campaign over questions about his health and mental acuity and she replaced him as the nominee.
She spoke to scores of Culinary Workers Union members alongside gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford, Nevada’s first Black attorney general, who she said would be the “first Black governor west of the Mississippi. The day after Las Vegas, Harris led chants of “Mississippi matters!” to a crowd supporting Scott Colom in the city of Columbus. Scott Ferson, a Democratic strategist and author of “How the Democrats Lost America,” said the party has tended to give short shrift to candidates who have lost, though voters disillusioned with Trump may also view Harris in a new light.
Harris kicked off her tour in Las Vegas on Tuesday with a new stump speech attacking what she described as the cruelty of President Donald Trump, mixed with the aspirational aphorisms that have long been her calling card as the first Black and Asian person and first woman to become vice president.
