In the United States, Joe Biden’s mandate is coming to an end. What will be the future of her vice-president, after her defeat against Donald Trump?
A “final humiliation” is what Kamala Harris experienced on Monday according to the Daily Mail. As President of the Senate, it was up to her to certify Donald Trump’s victory before parliamentarians.
“Final humiliation”, those close to him find the expression exaggerated but they concede: it was a bad time to go through. For them, a certainty today, this cannot be his last political action. But then what to do?
There are those who believe that she should run for governor of California in 2026. An election that appears to be easy to win. California is home. She was its attorney general for several years. And then there are the others, who would like her to run for president again.
“Many say that she didn’t really have a chance this year and that she should be able to run again in 2028,” says Issac Dovere, political columnist on CNN who was able to consult those around him.
“But some believe that she would not be guaranteed a clear field during the primaries and that she would lose the nomination” as a Democrat, he adds. Losing the nomination would be an additional humiliation, anything but necessary.
A comeback?
Especially since last year she had avoided this normally obligatory step. This frustrated some of the Democrats for whom it lacked, in fact, legitimacy.
Beyond that, it’s clear that Kamala Harris was underprepared. When she was thrown into the race, she already had presidential ambitions but not for 2024. According to one of the members of her campaign, she had confided before Joe Biden’s withdrawal that she would be “ready for 2028”. This was his initial goal but fate would have it otherwise.
Few unsuccessful American presidential candidates have managed a comeback, but there are some. Donald Trump obviously or even Richard Nixon. After a defeat in 1960 against John F. Kennedy, and another two years later when he sought the post of governor of California, he finally reached the White House in 1968.
A resilience that could inspire Kamala Harris. She should clarify her intentions by next summer.
“Great cleaning”
Meanwhile the Democratic Party is trying to get back on its feet. And time is running out. The midterm elections are fast approaching. For Laurence Nardon, head of the Americas program at IFRI, the Democrats cannot avoid analyzing their defeat because party leaders have an enormous responsibility.
“They have not brought out new talents, new faces for around fifteen years and the election of Obama,” she believes.
Indeed, at the beginning of 2010, party officials had already decided that Hilary Clinton would be a candidate in 2016. No encouragement for a revival. Similar scenario in 2020 with Joe Biden.
Today, some are advocating a “big clean-up”. The president of the DNC, the body that governs the party at the federal level, has already announced that he will not run again. He was widely criticized for supporting Joe Biden until the end.
The Democrats will soon organize a “post-mortem” to take stock. The Republicans did the same in 2012 after their second defeat against Obama. But the growing divisions between the moderate wing of the party and the more left, very progressive wing, could complicate dialogue.
