Commentary: Kamala Harris hints at a 2028 re-run, raising the question: Can a woman win?

Kamala Harris doesn’t wish to be governor of California, which has a complete lot of contenders (and a few voters) doing a cheerful dance this week.

However along with her announcement Wednesday that she is bowing out of a race she by no means formally entered, Harris has ignited a flurry of hypothesis that she’s warming up for one more run on the White Home in 2028.

Whether or not you want Harris or not, a attainable run by the XX chromosome former vp raises a perennial conundrum: Can a lady win the presidency?

“This query is official,” Nadia E. Brown advised me.

She’s a professor of presidency and director of the Ladies’s and Gender Research Program at Georgetown College. She factors out that post-election, Democrats can’t work out who they’re or what they stand for. In that disarray, it might appear straightforward and protected in 2028 to journey the well-worn route of “a straight, outdated white man who fills the established order.”

That could be very true within the Trump period, when an more and more vocal and empowered slice of America appears to consider that girls do, in truth, belong within the kitchen making sanwhiches, distant from any choice past turkey or ham.

Brown factors out that even Democrats who flaunt their progressive values, together with how a lot they’d like to vote for a feminine president, might harbor secret sexism that comes out within the privateness of the voting sales space.

Put up-2024, Harris’ defeat — and deciphering what it means — has triggered plenty of “morning-after nervousness and agita,” she mentioned. “We’re all doing analysis, we’re all within the subject making an attempt to determine this out.”

Whereas confused Democrats diddle in personal with their emotions, Republicans have made race and gender the middle of their platform, even when they cloak it beneath financial discuss. The get together’s place on race has grow to be painfully clear with its stance that every one undocumented immigrants are criminals and deserving of horrific detention in locations comparable to “Alligator Alcatraz” and even international prisons identified for torture.

The Republican place on ladies is barely extra cloaked, however no much less retrograde. Whether or not it’s the refusal to inform the general public how Trump is included within the Epstein recordsdata, the swift and brutal erosion of reproductive rights, or claims, such because the one by far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk, that the one motive for girls to attend school needs to be to get a “Mrs.” diploma, Republicans have made little secret of the truth that equality shouldn’t be a part of their package deal.

Though Trump’s approval scores have tanked over immigration, he did win simply over half of the favored vote final fall. In order that’s plenty of Individuals who both agree with him, or a minimum of aren’t bothered by these pre-civil rights concepts on race and gender.

Add to that actuality the keen pack of good, protected Democratic white guys who’re lining up for their very own probability on the Oval Workplace — our present California governor included — and it does beg the query for the left: Is a lady definitely worth the danger?

“I’ve positively seen and heard consultants and, you understand, even anxious ladies donors say, ‘Perhaps this implies we are able to’t run a lady.’ And I believe it’s fully regular for sure parts of the get together to be concerned about gender,” mentioned Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, a grassroots advocacy group.

She too thinks the gender query is “logical” because it has been blamed — although not by her — as “the explanation we misplaced to Donald Trump twice in a row, proper? Whereas Biden was capable of beat him.”

Whereas Timmaraju is obvious that these losses can’t — and shouldn’t — be tied to gender alone, gender can also’t be ignored when the margins are skinny.

Joseph Geevarghese, government director of the progressive political organizing group Our Revolution, which backed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, mentioned that gender and race are all the time an element, however he believes the larger query for any candidate in 2028 shall be their platform.

Harris, he mentioned, “misplaced not as a result of she was a lady. She misplaced as a result of she didn’t embrace an financial populist message. And I believe the voters is indignant about their way of life declining, and so they’re indignant concerning the elites controlling D.C. and enriching themselves.”

Greevarghese advised me he sees an reverse momentum constructing inside the get together and the voters — a want to not play it protected.

“Whoever it’s — male, feminine, homosexual, straight, Black, white, Asian — the candidate’s obtained to have a critique of this second, and it might probably’t be a normie Dem.”

Brown, the professor, provides, rightfully, that wanting on the query of a feminine candidate’s probabilities by means of the lens of simply Harris is just too slender. There are many ladies more likely to bounce into the race. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are simply two names already within the combine. Brown provides that an out of doors contender comparable to a lady from a political dynasty (assume Obama) or a celeb alongside the strains of Trump may additionally make headway.

The criticisms of Harris, along with her baggage of shedding the election and critiques of how she dealt with the marketing campaign and the media, might not canine one other feminine candidate, particularly with voters.

“Whether or not Kamala runs once more or not, I’m optimistic that the American folks will vote for a feminine president,” Vanessa Cardenas advised me. She is the manager director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group for immigrants’ rights.

Cardenas factors out that Hillary Clinton obtained greater than 65 million votes (successful the favored vote), and Harris topped 75 million. If simply Latinos had gone for Harris, as an alternative of breaking in an ongoing rightward shift, she would have received. Cardenas thinks Latino votes may shift once more in 2028.

“After the chaos, cruelty and incompetence of the Trump presidency, Latino voters, like most Individuals, will reward candidates who can communicate most authentically and appear most able to combat for another imaginative and prescient of America,” she mentioned. “I consider ladies, and girls of coloration, can credibility and forcibly communicate to the necessity for change rooted within the lived experiences of their communities.”

Timmaraju mentioned that no matter what Harris decides, Democrats will most likely have probably the most strong primaries in latest instances — which might solely be good for the get together and for voters.

And somewhat than asking, “Can a lady win?” the higher query could be, “Do we actually need a system that received’t allow them to attempt?”