Failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been quiet. She’s trying to stage a comeback.
But Kamala Harris took a huge blow with these bombshell 2024 election revelations.
Kamala Harris: The Democrats’ Disaster Waiting to Happen
When former President Joe Biden’s top aides looked at the prospect of Vice President Kamala Harris taking over the Democratic ticket in 2024, they didn’t just see a risk—they saw a catastrophe. According to excerpts from the forthcoming book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, previewed by The Guardian, Biden’s inner circle issued a stark warning to party donors: swapping Biden for Harris would be a colossal “mistake.” As the current date ticks to March 28, 2025, with Democrats licking their wounds from a brutal election loss, it’s clear that Harris as a national candidate was a liability the party could ill afford—and any talk of her making a comeback is a terrible idea.
The book, penned by NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes, dives into the chaotic summer of 2024, when Biden’s team scrambled to protect his nomination after a debate performance so dismal it left the party reeling. With Biden fighting for his political life, his aides didn’t mince words. They “aggressively” urged top Democratic donors to stick with the president, painting Harris as an untested, unpopular alternative who would drag the ticket—and the party—into the abyss. The message was simple: Harris wasn’t just a weak choice; she was a disaster in waiting.
As the pressure to ditch Biden intensified, his team didn’t hold back. “Frantically push[ed] back in phone calls and in text messages, accusing donors of promoting their own agendas at the expense of Biden, the party, and the country,” the authors write. The Biden camp saw the donor push for Harris as a selfish power play, a scheme to prop up a candidate who couldn’t win. The desperation was palpable—Biden’s people were convinced that Harris would sink the Democrats faster than Biden’s own stumbles ever could.
The book captures the raw frustration of Biden’s aides with vivid detail. “It all sounded like a serial k*ller’s conspiracy theory,” Allen and Parnes note, before relaying the unfiltered thoughts of their sources: “‘Donors want to scrap Biden so they can get his wannabe replacements – the governors, with power over state decisions – to beg them for cash,’ Biden aides argued. ‘This isn’t f*cking Wall Street financiers versus Ivy League presidents. Our guy isn’t scared of your money. We have grassroots donors. We have the support of the voters. We have the nomination in hand. All you’re doing is f*cking yourself and the president. We will remember this. Capisce?’” The subtext was clear: Harris wasn’t the savior donors dreamed of; she was a liability they’d regret.
And then came the ultimate trump card. “The last threat, the ace in the hole, was Kamala Harris,” the authors reveal. “‘Even if Biden did drop out and you got your dreamed-up open convention, you would only succeed in nominating the vice-president. Is that what you want? You want her? Look at her polling. No one wants her. Forget it. It’s never gonna happen.’” Biden’s team didn’t just question Harris’s viability—they outright dismissed it. Her polling was a mess, her appeal nonexistent. Forcing her onto the ticket, they argued, would be handing Trump the election on a silver platter.
Even after Biden’s debate flop, his allies clung to the belief that he was the Democrats’ best shot. They insisted he could still beat Trump, leaning hard on his 2020 victory as proof. Harris, by contrast, had no such track record—just a string of lackluster performances and a vice presidency that failed to inspire. When Biden finally bowed out on July 21, 2024, under a torrent of pressure and a funding drought, his reluctant endorsement of Harris felt more like a resignation than a vote of confidence.
Biden’s initial praise for Harris in 2020—“the best person to help me take this fight to Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation”—rang hollow by 2024. Once she became the nominee, Harris tried to sell herself as a fresh face, a “change agent” with a feel-good vibe. But when pressed on how she’d differ from Biden’s flagging agenda, she dodged, offering no clear vision. Her pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was meant to shore up male voters, but it imploded. Walz stumbled through gaffes while young men flocked to Trump, leaving Harris’s campaign looking clueless and out of touch.
The book exposes deeper cracks in the Democratic establishment. Heavyweights like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi harbored serious doubts about Harris. After Biden’s debate collapse, one source told the authors that Pelosi “actually was worried … saying, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be her.’” The dread was real—Pelosi and others saw Harris as a gamble the party couldn’t afford. Yet figures like South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn, who’d pushed Harris onto the 2020 ticket, steamrolled those concerns, locking her in as the nominee.
Harris’s relationship with Obama only made things worse. She felt snubbed when he hesitated to back her, a rift tracing back to a 2009 incident where she was barred from a VIP area at an Obama victory party. The book suggests Obama doubted Harris could beat Trump but endorsed her anyway—less out of faith and more to protect his own clout within the party. It was a tepid lifeline that couldn’t save her sinking campaign.
Harris Flounders On Election Day, Democrat Party Scrambling Ever Since
When Election Day hit, Harris didn’t just lose—she cratered. Trump swept all seven swing states, clinching both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Young voters, Hispanics, Black Americans, and the politically disengaged didn’t just drift away from Harris—they ran to Trump, smashing Democratic illusions about their base. Harris’s inability to connect, to offer anything beyond vague platitudes, left her exposed as a candidate with no juice, no fight, and no chance.
Looking back, Biden’s aides were right to sound the alarm. Harris wasn’t just unready—she was a walking liability. Her campaign exposed every flaw they’d warned about: weak messaging, poor instincts, and an inability to rally the coalition that Biden, for all his faults, had once held together. The idea of her staging a comeback now, in 2025 or beyond, is a delusion the Democrats can’t afford to entertain.
The party’s obsession with Harris defies logic. She’s proven she can’t win—not against Trump, not against anyone. Her vice presidency was a non-event, her campaign a train wreck. Democrats who think she’s the future are ignoring the wreckage of 2024, where she failed to ignite enthusiasm or even hold the line. A Harris-led ticket would be a rerun of a bad movie nobody liked the first time.
Contrast her with Biden, who at least had a track record of beating Trump. Flawed as he was, he had grit and a connection to voters Harris could only dream of. She brought nothing to the table but a forced smile and a losing hand. The donors who pushed for her misread the room—badly—and the party paid the price.
Now, with Trump back in the White House and the Democrats in disarray, talk of Harris as a viable contender feels like denial. She’s not the answer to the party’s problems—she’s a symptom of them. Her polling never recovered, her appeal never materialized, and her leadership never emerged. The Biden team saw it coming a mile away, and they were right to fight her ascent.
So why entertain a Harris comeback? It’s a fantasy for a party desperate to avoid hard truths. Kamala Harris isn’t a leader—she’s a cautionary tale. Democrats need to move on, not double down on a candidate who’s already proven she can’t cut it. The 2024 debacle should be her political epitaph, not a springboard for another doomed run.
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