Kamala Harris anointed Democrat party's 2028 'frontrunner' in new magazine article

Kamala Harris.

Former Vice President and 2024 also-ran Kamala Harris is the Democrats' 2028 frontrunner, according to a new profile of her political prospects in New York magazine, even though she hasn't formally declared her candidacy for the next presidential election and some in the party are expressing concerns about her running for the nation's top office again.

As the article points out, looking at polling alone, Harris enjoys a huge lead over other Democrats who are considered 2028 White House hopefuls. Polls show Harris has more than 35% support, about double the support California Gov. Gavin Newsom is registering, and is well ahead of Pete Buttigieg and AOC, who barely crack double digits.

“She walks in as the front-runner. It is fairly obvious she is followed wherever she goes,” one unnamed former Harris aide told New York magazine. “And I don’t want to upset any narratives that any of the other candidates are pushing, but she comes in with 99% name ID and everyone else is going to have to raise money and buy it.”

Another Harris supporter, who claims to have recently spoken with the former vice president, is now convinced Harris will jump into the race. "Her mindset is that 'I should have won, and I am going to do it my way because my way would have won, and it was all these consultants that were telling me to take this position or that position, and it was their fault," the unnamed supporter said.

But not everyone in the party is convinced running Harris again is a wise strategy. Liz Minnella, a former deputy finance chair for the party, expressed some reservations about Harris, although she stopped short of blaming Harris for her 2024 loss to Donald Trump.

"I think she has learned a lot from the mistakes she made — or, I should say, the campaign made — in ’24, and I would love it, but can she go back to all of those people again and raise money?" Minnella wondered. "Will it all be just an autopsy of 2024?"

And some in the party are outright hostile toward the idea of the party nominating Harris, which it didn't do in 2024 when she was installed as the candidate after Joe Biden dropped out under pressure from party leaders. “I hope she runs,” Alex Hoffman, a donor-facing strategist for the Democrats said. “Because then she will lose and we will never have to hear from her again. She will never win an election at a national scale. Never.”

Minnella and Hoffman are hardly the only Democrats who have publicly voiced skepticism about Harris running again, but Harris still commands a strong lead in early polling. 

And Harris has been behaving as though she is heavily weighing another White House run. She declined to run for governor of California earlier this year, and in recent months has been vocally critical of Trump on numerous occasions, has been a stalwart cheerleader for Democrats' leading up to the midterm elections, has leaned into extremist positions espoused by some Democrats, like packing the Supreme Court and giving Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico statehood, and has been a regular making appearances at various conferences and public discussions, where her performance has been mixed, and, at times, fell flat altogether. 

Watch the video below for more on how Harris is being framed as the 2028 frontrunner.