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 Nov 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.
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.
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".
"We got a serious fight in front of us," Harris said. "We are witnessing pure brutality come out of what is undoubtedly the most corrupt, callous and incompetent presidential administration."
Like Trump, who is jetting around the country for Republican candidates, Harris is not broadly popular among voters. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll in June showed 39 percent of Americans viewed her favourably, but the figures were starkly partisan: 82 percent of Democrats viewed her favourably, compared to 7 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents.
"At the end of a campaign, you bring out your heavy hitters," said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Democratic National Committee. "That's what's going on here with her, and frankly with Trump."
The day after Las Vegas, Harris led chants of "Mississippi matters!" to a crowd supporting Scott Colom in the city of Columbus. 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.
Harris opened with advice she said she gives young people she mentors: "Never let someone else's limited ability to see your capacity be a limitation on your ambition," she said. "Let me repeat that." And she did, louder than the first time, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Undecided on 2028
If Harris decides to run again for the White House in 2028, she would likely be among the most high-profile names in what is expected to be a crowded Democratic field.
But Harris also carries the baggage of past defeats: she lost the 2024 presidential election to Trump, and her first White House campaign ended before the 2020 Democratic nominating contests began.
A 2028 campaign would also force Harris to revisit the Democrats' chaotic 2024 race, when then-President Joe Biden abruptly ended his re-election campaign over questions about his health and mental acuity and she replaced him as the nominee.
Harris has since called Biden's decision to seek re-election "reckless" in her memoir "107 Days", a reference to the short campaign she inherited. This month, she offered her clearest criticism yet of his support for Israel's war in Gaza, rebuking the Israeli government's "horrific conduct" and saying the US should have "acted sooner and more forcefully".
"All these things will be relitigated," Kamarck said. "What happened to Biden? Did she know? Did she think he was losing it? And on and on and on."
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.
"She has that kind of crossover appeal," Ferson said, "particularly with people who left in 2024 or stayed home". Her implicit message, he suggested, is "Do you regret staying home?"
This month, as she wrapped up an appearance on the "Baby, This Is Keke Palmer" video podcast, Palmer asked her if she would run again.
"Oh, girl, come on!" Harris said, laughing while gripping the hands of the Hollywood movie star. "I haven't decided yet."
"But the midterms, the midterms, the midterms," Harris went on. "2028 don't matter if we don't do 2026 right."