In 74 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will leave office, with no concrete plans about what to do next or how to proceed as a private citizen for the first time since she was elected San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003.
Her friends, aides and political allies have said in the hours since her loss to former President Donald J. Trump that it is too soon to even contemplate, let alone plan, the next phase of her life, except to say that the 60-year-old Ms. Harris will have plenty of options.
Like the defeated presidential nominees who came before her, Ms. Harris is experiencing incredible political whiplash. On Tuesday morning, she was the leader of the Democratic Party and widely seen as its future. By Thursday, officials were privately saying they expected her to remain engaged but assumed the party would want to move on from the Biden era as soon as possible.
“I believe that she is more respected than ever within our party,” said Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis of California, a longtime Harris ally. “I think the question really is, what does she want to do? Right now I’m sure she is simply trying to process. But I have no doubt that she will have an answer to this in the coming months.”
Here are six options for Ms. Harris as she contemplates her post-vice presidency.
Bide her time and run again in 2028
Democrats have not exactly hungered for their defeated presidential nominees to try again. After her 2016 loss, Hillary Clinton came to be seen as a deeply flawed candidate. She has maintained a rapport with donors, but when it came time for the Harris campaign to deploy her as a surrogate, Mrs. Clinton held an event in Tampa, far from a battleground state.
John Kerry returned to the Senate and eventually became secretary of state. Al Gore briefly entertained running for president again in 2004 but later endorsed Howard Dean in the Democratic primary race.
There is no reason to believe Democrats are eager to anoint Ms. Harris as their 2028 nominee, especially given how comfortably Mr. Trump won the Electoral College. She received the 2024 nomination in part because President Biden dropped out of the race with too little time for the party to hold a proper primary election.
Yet four years is an eternity in politics. Ms. Harris has access to the party’s largest donor network and could bank on nationwide buyer’s remorse if the second Trump term is as chaotic and damaging to the country as she predicted.
Run for a lower office
Returning to the Senate is theoretically an option, but it’s unlikely: Next year, California will have two senators in their first full terms who are unlikely to step down anytime soon.
California will also have an open-seat race for governor in 2026. Still, Ms. Harris might be reluctant to campaign against other Democrats like Ms. Kounalakis, who is already running.
If she did, Ms. Harris would not be the first vice president to run for governor of California after losing a presidential election. Richard M. Nixon was denied the presidency in 1960, then the governor’s mansion two years later. When he lost that race, Mr. Nixon proclaimed to reporters, “You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last news conference.”
Six years later Mr. Nixon finally won the White House, though things did not go entirely swimmingly for him after that.
Join the private sector
As she said repeatedly on the campaign trail, Ms. Harris has had one client her entire career: the people.
Plenty of people with lots of money and business in Washington and California would be happy for her to take them on as clients if she chose to join a law firm or lobbying outfit.
Cashing in after a career in Washington is such a well-traveled path that recruitment of retiring and defeated members of Congress begins well before they leave office. But while it would be quite lucrative, Ms. Harris would probably avoid going into lobbying or corporate law if she has any visions of running for president again.
Do advocacy work or join a think tank
During Republican administrations, the Center for American Progress in Washington has become a holding area for future Democratic administration staff members and potential candidates.
But joining an existing think tank might be too small a move for someone who was on the verge of sitting in the Oval Office herself.
Standing up a new organization in her own image would also be an arduous task likely to require substantial fund-raising from Democratic donors who are burned out and angry about the party’s 2024 debacle.
Before she jumped into advocacy work or a think tank, Ms. Harris would need to decide what precisely she wanted to be advocating. Her presidential campaign was largely an exercise in promoting the policies of the Biden administration. In 2025, she will be free of that political straitjacket, and can again prioritize whatever issues she wants.
“She provides immense value to the party,” said Representative Barbara Lee of California. “Her background, her understanding of intersectional policymaking, and her ability to build coalitions are her biggest strengths. She is a fighter for the people. She has, and will continue to, help make life better for everyone, regardless of their background. Whatever she does next, I know she will continue to inspire.”
Write a book
There will be no shortage of publishers interested in selling Ms. Harris’s thoughts about her experience in the Biden administration and running against Mr. Trump.
Hillary Clinton wrote a book titled “What Happened” after Mr. Trump beat her in 2016. Mr. Gore plunged into environmental advocacy and produced the documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth.”
How candid Ms. Harris might be about her feelings would probably be indirectly proportional to her interest in seeking public office again. But there will be enormous public interest in what she really thought about serving with an aging president and losing an election to a man she described as a fascist threat to democracy.
Practice self-care — and go for a hike
About the only clue regarding Ms. Harris’s post-election plans is her apparent desire to spend more time with food not eaten on a campaign plane.
“I plan on putting on some pounds after this is over,” she said on Oct. 27 in Pennsylvania at a bookstore in Pennsylvania. “They’re working me to the bone.”
She could also emulate Mrs. Clinton.
Days after she lost to Mr. Trump in 2016, the former secretary of state was spotted by a fellow hiker on a trail outside her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Bill Clinton took a photo that the woman subsequently shared on Facebook, where it went viral.
Ms. Harris still has 10 weeks left to reside in the Naval Observatory, the grounds of which are not known for good hiking. But Rock Creek Park in Washington is nearby, with miles of pretty trails for the vice president or her supporters to relieve their post-election stress on foot.
The post What’s Next for Kamala Harris? Here Are Six Options. appeared first on New York Times.
