Even though we're only nine days away from what Andy Williams sang as the most wonderful time of the year, it's been a pretty dismal news cycle the last 72 hours or so. Whether it's the two Iowa National Guardsmen who were killed in an ISIS ambush in Syria, the mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, and the absolute Keystone Cops response by local law enforcement, the awful antisemitic attack on Jews beginning their Hanukah celebration on Bondi Beach in Australia, or the tragic killing of Rob and Michele Reiner, allegedly stabbed by their own son, Nick, it was hard Sunday night to find something cheerful about which to write a column.
But, as the song goes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute. And of all the improbable places and people with which to find that Christmas miracle we so very much need, Axios drops the story yesterday that former Vice-President Kamala Harris, who I'm reliably told is blaming her 2024 loss to Donald Trump solely on the fact that she did not have enough time to mount an effective campaign, is gearing up for another run at the White House in 2028. Alex Thompson has the details.
Kamala Harris isn't planning to go gentle into that good night. This week the former vice president made clear to potential 2028 rivals that she's working to keep another White House campaign viable.
Why it matters: Despite worries from party leaders and donors that she can't win, Harris remains at or near the top of most 2028 Democratic primary polls. She also has strong support among Black voters — the most critical voting bloc in most recent Democratic presidential primaries.
Driving the news: After lying low the first part of this year and then embarking on a 2024-focused book tour, Harris made several moves this week that many Democrats see as the beginnings of a 2028 campaign.
Now if that doesn't put you into the holiday spirit, I'm not sure seeing this on a house is going to help.
The Griswold Christmas Vacation House in La Mirada is one of a handful of must stops for us each holiday season. This year, Aunt Bethany has joined the scene and we loved every minute of our visit https://t.co/frvobGgIkf #ChristmasVacation pic.twitter.com/VXn1GUGAgy
— Parks And Cons (@ParksAndCons) December 6, 2023
Harris' book, 107 Days, sold around 350,000 copies its first week, and that was after a very large media push ahead of time with plenty of excerpts dropped. How does that compare? Prince Harry, the next King of England's neurotic little brother, published his memoir, Spare, and sold 3.2 million copies in the first week. And that's a book I wouldn't read with your eyes. Michelle Obama's book, Becoming, (something Barack's presidential library certainly isn't), sold 1.4 million in the U.S. alone. Brittney Spears, for the love of all that is holy, sold 1.1 million copies of The Woman In Me. And after reading some of the tabloid exploits of Spears' last decade or so, i'm convinced that there might actually be another woman inside her. Harris sold just enough books to people who can't stand Donald Trump to extend her Misery tour well into 2026.
And by misery, I mean, this is the kind of media appearances we got from Kamala in the first wave of book promotion.
On Donald Trump's extension of the White House's East Wing to build a ballroom she purportedly as president would be able to use for state dinners, complete with as many boxes of Sauvignon Blanc as she can consume:
How many of you out there would trust 16-year-olds to make consequential life decisions. No one? How about letting them vote? Kamala's totally down with that.
Kamala is that boss everyone in America can't stand - the person that has zero accomplishments, and then when she gets demoted or fired, blames her staff for not hyping the very accomplishments she does not in fact possess.
On her own abilities:
For the record, literally no one in America besides Kamala Harris has ever conjured the thought that Kamala Harris was the most qualified candidate ever to run. She wasn't even the most qualified president in 2024 to run. She had Vice-President down as professional experience on her resume. Donald Trump had being president on his. Just on job experience alone, he was supremely more qualified.
As you can see, Harris was just as awful on this book tour as she was during her 107 days as the nominee exactly no Democrat in any state voted for in a primary. She is the exact the same Kamala Harris that got pasted in the Democratic primary field in 2020, failing to make it to the Iowa Caucus before having to pull out. In short, she's as good on her feet as Younghoe Koo, the placekicker for the New York Giants. Look it up. Trust me. It'll generate a chuckle.
According to Thompson in Axios, Kamala 3.0 is being crafted in a laboratory and about to have the new communications chip installed.
Harris is rolling out new rhetoric.
- She railed against both parties and the status quo in a speech Friday to Democratic officials. Many in the room told Axios they were struck by how different Harris' remarks were from her Biden-defending message on the campaign trail last year.
- "Both parties have failed to hold the public's trust," Harris said. "Government is viewed as fundamentally unable to meet the needs of its people…. People are done with the status quo and they're ready to break things to force change."
- "We cannot afford to be nostalgic for a flawed system that failed so many," she added, arguing that President Trump is a "symptom" of a bigger problem.
Big Data polling came out with a survey taken late last week that bolsters Team Kamala to give the White House another go.
Big Data Poll | 12/10-12/12 RV
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) December 15, 2025
2028 Democratic presidential primary
Kamala Harris 31.1%
Gavin Newsom 20.3%
Pete Buttigieg 10.0%
Josh Shapiro 6.4%
A. Ocasio-Cortez 6.3%
Andy Beshear 3.5%
Gretchen Whitmer 3.1%
Undecided 14.4%https://t.co/pm2xNSIcys pic.twitter.com/xvjcowaDNb
Yes, Kamala Harris is apparently going to run as an agent of change. Out with the status quo says, *checks notes*, the person who led the campaign to lie every day for four years specifically covering up for and protecting the status quo.
I, for one, am perfectly happy to accept this gift to the Republicans by the Democratic Party. In fact, since the saying goes that it's better to give than to receive, I'm embarrassed to admit that Republicans are far, far behind the Democrats in the Christmas giving spirit. After all, Democrats have given us the Jasmine Crockett for Senate campaign, Chuck Schumer walking into a door and then crumpling in a heap with the goverment shutdown before Thanksgiving, and how we're on the verge of Kamala Harris going toe to toe with Gavin Newsom for the Democratic nomination? How did we as a party become so blessed?
Surely, you might be thinking, there's no way they're going to nominate her again, especially as bad of a candidate as she is. And the cynical side of me would agree with you, that there's no way big Democratic donors are going to open up their wallets fort a Harris run in 2028. But technically, Democrats wouldn't be nominating her again. She has never received so much as one Democratic delegate for president through any primary election process. She technically would be vying for her first nomination in which people actually cast votes for her. No wonder she's looking to harvest the 16-year-old voters. She's going to have to get creative in order to find people that have never heard her speak before.
So Merry Christmas...oh, wait.
You really dodged a bullet America-
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) December 24, 2024
“How dare we. How dare we speak Merry Christmas…” -Drunk Kamala pic.twitter.com/R76dSYUtrT
Okay, how about Happy Kwanzaa, the holiday in which Harris talks about celebrating fondly as a little girl?
#KWANZAA: VP Kamala Harris recounts celebrating Kwanzaa as a young girl: "There were never enough chairs so my sister and I and the other children would often sit on the floor and together we lit the candles of the Kinara and then the elders would talk." pic.twitter.com/5P8uPzvQ8S
— Forbes (@Forbes) December 26, 2022
Just a reminder that Kwanzaa wasn't invented until Kamala was in high school, and it wasn't until she was away at college before the rest of the country had even heard of what Kwanzaa was.
I can't wait. Axios, thanks for bringing the Christmas joy a little earlier this year. The next three years are going to be fun.
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