News/Commentary

Axios says Democrats are fooling themselves about Kamala Harris’ popularity

July 21, 2026 | | Print Article

Could former Vice President Kamala Harris be making a political comeback? Republicans are hoping so.

It’s one thing to lose a presidential election by a historic margin, especially to a man whom your entire party has spent the better part of the last decade demonizing in the strongest possible terms. But when your political opposition is not only unconcerned by your comeback, to the point of even celebrating the possibility, it may be time to rethink your career plans.

New York Magazine posted a glowing piece that positions Harris as “a presidential contender–in–waiting,” complete with anecdotes about how she has changed and is now worthy of being the party’s front-runner despite her humiliating loss to President Donald Trump less than two years ago.

Look:

“She’s been listening to the American people and really trying to figure out what’s impacting them and how she can be of service to them,” said longtime Democratic strategist Minyon Moore, according to the article. “I mean, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that right now we need leaders that can take us in a different direction and bring us back together as a party.”

A former aide spoke as if Harris running again is inevitable, and everyone else just has to get on board.

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“She walks in as the front-runner. It is fairly obvious she is followed wherever she goes. She comes in with 99 percent name ID and everyone else is going to have to raise money and buy it,” they declared.

More from New York Magazine:

It remains an article of faith among Harris’s tight-knit group of advisers that the 2024 race wasn’t winnable. Her polling lead was a mirage and did not square with what the campaign’s internal polls were showing. The compressed timeline after Biden dropped out of the race left her without enough time to appear as her own person, a particularly big problem when much of the public had tired of the president. And multiple former campaign staffers brought up the two assassination attempts against Trump as evidence that Harris’s loss was all but preordained.

Harris has been doing some repair work. The former vice-president reportedly reached out to New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and has been meeting with activists from the Uncommitted movement, which urged Democrats to leave their primary ballots blank in 2024 in protest of the war in Gaza. The meetings come as support for Israel has cratered among Democrats and a number of pro-Palestine candidates have won competitive primaries where Middle East policy was front and center.

 

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Sierra Marlee
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