Kamala Harris has announced that she will not be running for governor in the her home state of California, where she previously served as attorney general and US senator. “For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” she said in a lengthy statement explaining the move.

Some reports suggest that Harris is priming herself for another run at the White House — her third. This would be unwise. Harris has yet to make any case that she should be taken seriously as a presidential contender. And she has not engaged deeply in major Democratic Party debates over hot-button issues such as immigration or transgender rights. While the Democrats are in a thorny internal debate about Israel-Palestine, she hasn’t mentioned the issue at all since losing her presidential race, despite promises a year ago that she would “not be silent” about suffering in Gaza.

Since Barack Obama’s exit from the presidency, the Democrats have lacked leaders with strong convictions and the former president’s boundless charisma. Harris simply doesn’t solve this problem for the party. She was dogged throughout her presidential bid in 2024 by the positions she took as a senator and presidential candidate in 2019, which she disavowed with little to no explanation.

That’s because, as most Americans can intuit, Harris has no deep moral or philosophical core. Her career has largely been about keeping her head down, trying to avoid controversial issues, and getting herself as close as possible to the presidency. We witnessed that during her 2020 presidential run, where she sometimes waffled on whether or not she would abolish private health insurance on a daily basis, acting more like a weathervane than a leader.

Democrats need to look deeply for someone who has demonstrated that they can go toe to toe with the modern Republican Party. That may mean looking to America’s Sun Belt — where Democrats have been in nail-biting competition with Republicans — for the next candidate, not the coastal states where politicians like Harris have found themselves safely immune from GOP attacks.

The Democratic Party’s task should instead be to neutralise the cultural attacks that were so potent against Harris. That means touting a tough but fair line on immigration — that the party has no tolerance for unlawful immigration or abuse of the asylum system, but welcomes people who are willing to work hard and play by the rules. It also means moderating on transgender issues, like conceding that it is unfair for biological men to compete with women in competitive sports.

There are signs that a new generation of Democratic lawmakers may be amenable to these arguments, such as Arizona’s Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, who has been reliably supportive of the party’s major agenda items but has urged moderation on gender issues.

Harris ran two presidential campaigns where she had a chance to make the case that she was the cure to what ails the Democratic Party. The country turned her down on both occasions. She has plenty of time ahead of her to make her mark, but frontline politics is not where she will find success.

---

Zaid Jilani is a journalist who has worked for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, The Intercept, and the Center for American Progress.

ZaidJilani

---