While Kamala Harris, former vice president of the U.S., lost 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 last you’ll see of her in politics.
When asked by Fortune’s Editor in Chief Alyson Shontell whether her 107-day presidential run was the ultimate glass cliff, Harris said: “A cliff to me suggests finality, and I’m not into that.”
Harris recently opted out of joining the California gubernatorial race and recently published her political memoir, 107 Days, which chronicles her brief presidential 2024 campaign that ended in defeat to President Donald Trump. The book is on track to be one of the best-selling memoirs of this year.
“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 said. “And when you break things, it might get cut and you might bleed, and it is worth it every single time.”
Harris was the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first South Asian American to hold the office of vice president of the U.S., from 2021-2025. She’s also the first Indian American senator (2017-2021) and California’s first female, Black and South Asian attorney general (2011-2017). She failed to break the ultimate glass ceiling, the U.S. presidency, after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in July 2024. Her 107-day run was the shortest presidential campaign in modern history.
Her memoir includes reflections on the campaign, insights about her relationship with Biden and his family, and perspectives on key moments during the election. She shares regrets about not getting enough time with key voter groups and having to define her own narrative in Biden’s shadow. She claimed in the book that several of her own party members—including former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom—stalled in throwing their support behind her following Biden’s dropout.
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 also writes that it was reckless to leave the decision of whether Biden should run again solely up to 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.”
During her vice presidential tenure, she focused on voting rights, gun control, women’s reproductive rights, and infrastructure investment. She largely focused on those same key issues during her presidential campaign, as well as middle-class-focused economic policies, strengthening the Affordable Care Act, and comprehensive immigration reform.
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