Whereas Kamala Harris, former vp of the U.S., misplaced the 2024 presidential election, she hinted at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that the defeat likely won’t be the final you’ll see of her in politics.
When requested by Fortune’s Editor in Chief Alyson Shontell whether or not her 107-day presidential run was the final word glass cliff, Harris stated: “A cliff to me suggests finality, and I’m not into that.”
Harris lately opted out of becoming a member of the California gubernatorial race and lately printed her political memoir, 107 Days, which chronicles her transient presidential 2024 marketing campaign that resulted in defeat to President Donald Trump. The guide is on observe to be one of many best-selling memoirs of this yr.
“Do you think that breaking barriers means you start out on one side of the barrier and just end up on the other side of the barrier? No, there’s breaking involved,” Harris stated. “And when you break things, it might get cut and you might bleed, and it is worth it every single time.”
Harris was the primary girl, the primary Black girl, and the primary South Asian American to carry the workplace of vp of the U.S., from 2021-2025. She’s additionally the primary Indian American senator (2017-2021) and California’s first feminine, Black and South Asian legal professional common (2011-2017). She failed to interrupt the final word glass ceiling, the U.S. presidency, after changing President Joe Biden because the Democratic nominee in July 2024. Her 107-day run was the shortest presidential marketing campaign in fashionable historical past.
She describes Obama’s response in her memoir: “Saddle up! Joe did what I hoped he would do. But you have to earn it. Michelle and I are supportive but not going to put a finger on the scale right now. Let Joe have his moment. Think through timing.”
Harris additionally writes that it was reckless to depart the choice of whether or not Biden ought to run once more solely as much as the 81-year-old president.
“’It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris wrote in 107 Days. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.”
Throughout her vice presidential tenure, she targeted on voting rights, gun management, ladies’s reproductive rights, and infrastructure funding. She largely targeted on those self same key points throughout her presidential marketing campaign, in addition to middle-class-focused financial insurance policies, strengthening the Reasonably priced Care Act, and complete immigration reform.
