What next after the terrible defeat in the elections?

Exactly two months after losing the election to Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris will be in charge of certifying her defeat.

As Senate president, she will stand at the House Speaker’s podium on Monday to preside over the electoral college vote count, officially sealing her opponent’s triumph two weeks before he returns to the White House.

The circumstances are painful and uncomfortable for a candidate who has denounced his opponent as an immediate threat to American democracy, but aides to Harris insist she will carry out her constitutional and legal duty with seriousness and grace.

It’s not the first time a losing candidate has led a joint session of Congress to recount his opponent’s presidential election — Al Gore suffered the ignominy in 2001 and Richard Nixon in 1961.

But it’s a fitting coda to an improbable election that saw Harris rise from second-in-command to the nation’s oldest president to Democratic standard-bearer — whose fleeting campaign gave her party a glimmer of hope before a crushing defeat exposed deep internal flaws.

Harris and her team are now mulling her second act and weighing whether it will include another run for the White House in 2028 or a bid for the governor’s mansion in her home state of California.

While recent losing Democratic candidates — Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton — have decided not to run for president again, aides, allies and donors say the sharp support for Harris is due to her failed bid and unusual circumstances. proves to her embattled campaign that there is still scope for her to pursue the Oval Office.

They even point to Donald Trump’s own circuitous political path — the paperback former and future president won in 2016 and 2024 despite losing as an incumbent in 2020.

But while many Democrats don’t blame Harris for Trump’s victory, some — stunned by the crushing defeat that cast doubt on the party’s strategy — are deeply skeptical of giving her another shot at the White House. A slew of Democratic governors who have rallied behind the vice president in 2024 but have ambitions of their own are seen by some strategists as fresher candidates with a much better chance of winning.

Harris herself is said to be in no rush to make any decisions, telling advisers and supporters that she is open to whatever opportunities await her after Inauguration Day on January 20.

She takes stock of the past few months, during which she launched a brand new campaign in the White House, got to know her running mate, chaired a party convention and took the country by storm in just 107 days. And aides note that she remains the vice president of the United States for at least two more weeks.

“She has to make a decision and you can’t make it when you’re still on the treadmill. It may have slowed down, but it will be on the treadmill by January 20,” said Donna Brazile, a close Harris associate who advised the company.

“You can’t put anybody in a box. We didn’t put Al Gore in a box, and it was clear that the country was very divided after the 2000 election,” said Brazile, who managed Gore’s campaign against George W. Bush and noted his second life as an environmental activist. “All options are on the table because there is an appetite for change and I believe she can represent that change in the future.”

But the nagging question clouding any potential run in 2028 is whether the 60-year-old can separate herself from Joe Biden — something she failed to do on the campaign trail.

Her party allies say Biden’s choice to seek re-election despite concerns about his age, only to ultimately drop out of the race with months remaining, doomed her candidacy.

Although Trump carried all seven battleground states and is the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, his lead was relatively narrow, while Harris still received 75 million votes, and her supporters argue that this result cannot be ignored as a faceless Democratic Party rebuilding for the next four years.

On the other hand, people close to Biden are still confident that he could beat Trump again, despite ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​a

They point out that Harris has failed to do what the president did in 2020 by failing to make gains among key Democratic groups such as blacks and Latinos. Critics continue to point to her 2019 campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee, which collapsed in less than a year.

“People forget that if there had been a real primary (in 2024), she would never have been a candidate. Everyone knows that,” said one of Biden’s former advisers.

The adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, applauded Harris for reviving the Democratic base and helping key congressional races, but said the Trump campaign had successfully undermined her on critical campaign issues, including the economy and the border.

However, members of Trump’s team, including his top pollster, acknowledged that Harris was a stronger candidate than Biden on some issues, such as the economy among voters.

Still, there’s no escaping the fact that any 2028 Democratic primary will be a tight race, with rising stars like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker and the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, are already considering a presidential candidacy.

Some Democrats say Harris would nevertheless start ahead of the pack with national name recognition, a highly coveted mailing list and plenty of volunteers.

“What state party wouldn’t want her to come help them set the table for the 2026 midterms?” – said Brazil. “She will have many opportunities not only to rebuild, but also to strengthen the coalition that has come together to support her in 2024.”

Others speculated that she might withdraw from politics altogether, running a foundation or founding a policy institute at her alma mater, Howard University, Washington’s historically black college, where she held a party the night before the election.

The former attorney general could also be a contender for secretary of state or attorney general in a future Democratic administration. And she will have to decide if she wants to write another book.

For all her capabilities, Harris told aides, she wants to remain visible and be seen as a party leader. One adviser suggested she could exist outside of the domestic political fray, taking on a more global role on an issue that matters to her, but that’s a tall order without a platform as big as the vice presidency.

According to a source familiar with the plans, she plans to take an international trip to several regions in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, a sign of her desire to maintain her role on the world stage and create a legacy beyond that of Biden. number two.

For Harris and her team, the weeks since the election have been humbling, a mix of grief and determination. Several aides described the three-month sprint that began when Biden dropped out as one that began with a “dig-out-of-a-hole” campaign and ended with their candidate more popular than when he started, even if she didn’t win.

“There’s a sense of peace in knowing that given what we’ve been given, we’ve run the gamut,” said one senior aide.

After the election, Harris and her husband, fellow gentleman Doug Emhoff, spent a week in Hawaii with a small group of aides to relax and discuss her future.

During a holiday party at her official residence before Christmas, Harris spoke about election night and how she gave her family a pep talk when the results became clear.

“We’re not having a pity party!” she told the crowd about her reaction that night.

Advisers and allies say she is still processing what happened and wants to wait and see how the new administration unfolds in January before taking any position, let alone becoming the face of any so-called “resistance Trump.

Democrats have found that the resistance movement that began among liberals after his 2016 victory no longer resonates in today’s political climate, where the Republican has proven his message and style appeal to large numbers of Americans.

They took a more conciliatory approach in confronting the incoming president’s agenda. As several Democrats put it, “What’s the resistance?”

Although she has kept relatively low profile since the loss, Harris offered insight into her thinking at an event for students at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland in December.

“Civil rights movements, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the United States of America itself would never have come into existence if people had given up their cause after a court case, a battle, or an election had failed. way,” she said.

“We have to stay in the fight,” she added, a refrain she repeated after winning the Senate in 2016. – Each of us.

What this means is less clear. For some donors and supporters, staying “in the running” could turn into a run for California governor in 2026 when term-limited Gavin Newsom retires and potentially pursues his own White House ambitions. The job of leading the world’s fifth-largest economy would also put Harris in direct conflict with Trump, who has regularly attacked the state for its left-leaning policies.

But governing a major nation is no small feat, and she would derail any presidential race as she would be sworn in around the time she would need to launch a national campaign.

Those who have spoken with Harris said she is still undecided about the governor’s race, which some allies have described as the potential “pinnacle” of her career.

She served three times as the Attorney General of California, and then as a US Senator. But winning the governorship would give her another historic honor — becoming the nation’s first black female governor.

Still, some allies admit it would be difficult to go from being in a 20-car motorcade to sitting across the table from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the governor’s mansion.

The private sector is another option.

“For women at other levels, when they lose an election, there are sometimes less options available than men who get a soft landing in a law firm or insurance business, and that gives them a chance to reflect. , make some money and then make decisions about what happens next,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for Kamala Harris. I think doors will open for her if she wants to open them.”

But for Harris, who has been in elected office for two decades and was a prosecutor before that, an afterlife as governor may be the best fit.

“If you’ve had one client — people — for your entire career,” said one former adviser, “what do you do from here?”