“Welcome back, Kamala.”
That’s the message from Senate lawmakers to Kamala Harris, whose failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination will send her back to Congress to resume her role as the junior senator from California.
“We’ve had many examples of presidential candidates who have returned to the Senate,” Sen. Ben Cardin told the Washington Examiner. “She’s a person who is beloved here, so she’ll do well.”
Harris ended her campaign Tuesday after months in free fall. Harris announced her candidacy in January to a rapturous hometown crowd in Oakland, California. And election handicappers in the first months of the 2020 cycle pegged her as a top-tier candidate, with former Vice President Joe Biden and a rotating cast of rivals, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
But Harris’s campaign proved more hype than substance, with fundraising woes quickly diminishing her national profile. Her poll numbers dived at the same time, leaving Harris, 55, gasping for air in a Democratic primary field that at one point numbered 26. With her out, 15 Democratic candidates remain.
Harris’s high-water mark in the campaign came during the first Democratic debate, in Miami, on June 27. That night, she confronted Biden over his statement defending work with segregationist senators decades ago and his opposition to school busing in the 1970s.
The moment passed quickly, though, and her campaign deflated over the summer. The last time Harris held double-digit support among Democratic voters was in a late-August-through-early-September Emerson College poll, which had her at 10 points but in fourth place among her rivals. That poll appeared to be an outlier as well, with Harris not cracking 10% support since July.
Now back in the Senate, Harris will work in a chamber teeming with former presidential candidates from both parties.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said he understands the disappointment and shock that a candidate such as Harris might be feeling.
Kaine was Hillary Clinton’s running mate on the 2016 Democratic ticket. Despite most polls predicting a Clinton-Kaine victory, he found himself back in the Senate that November.
At the time, former Republican presidential nominee John McCain gave him some advice.
“You’ll probably do your most productive work in the Senate now,” Kaine recalled McCain saying, less than two years before the Arizonan’s death. “Because having run a campaign around the country, you know the country better. It helps you with your colleagues if you handle it right.”
Harris is one of the newer members of the Senate, arriving in 2017.
Her junior status means she won’t be appointed to a top committee role anytime soon. Those positions are reserved almost exclusively for senior senators.
“She might not be moving into the leadership anytime soon, given the reliance on seniority,” Jim Manley, who served as a top aide to Majority Leader Harry Reid, said. “But given her profile and visibility, she can be a very effective senator if she wants.”
Harris could run for a leadership post in the Democratic caucus, senators said. Or she could simply try to be influential as an individual senator, which is much easier to accomplish in the Senate than in the House, where 435 members compete for influence.
“It’s whether you have that interest,” Cardin said when asked about Harris becoming a Democratic leader. “There is so much opportunity in the Senate office as a senator. It depends on how she wants to spend her time. Her talent would be great in the leadership, and her talent would be great as a senator representing California. I think she’s a great leader. She sees problems that she wants to solve and looks for the best way to go about doing it.”
Harris will return to the Senate after a surprisingly short bid for the White House.
Harris drew early comparisons to then-candidate Barack Obama and his meteoric rise to the White House, not only for her background but also for the crowd of 20,000-plus people who attended her January announcement in Oakland. Between 15,000 and 17,000 people showed up for Obama’s launch in Springfield, Illinois, in February 2007.
By the time Harris dropped out, she was polling in the low single digits or worse in all key early states and nationally. Just before dropping out, Harris had an average of just 4 points of support, according to a RealClearPolitics analysis of polls.
Since the summer, Harris’s team has tried a number of gimmicks to recapture the attention of voters and the press, including writing a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey demanding that President Trump be banned from the platform and insisting that she was a “top-tier” candidate, even after some polls put her behind long shot outsider Andrew Yang.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, said despite the failure of her campaign that she will nonetheless return to the Congress with more influence.
“I think she’s elevated her profile,” Graham said of Harris. “I think she made splash. Her capital with the Democratic Party has gone up.”
Harris could end up leaving the Senate if she’s selected as a running mate or a Cabinet member. Some have suggested Harris would be a desirable attorney general.
If Harris doesn’t end up joining a Democratic administration, she has plenty of time to weigh her political future: She is not up for reelection in the Senate until 2022.
Jason McDaniel, assistant professor of political science at San Francisco State University, told the Washington Examiner he believes Harris will be on the Democratic nominee’s shortlist for vice president or for a Cabinet position.
If not, McDaniel said, “I have no doubt that Harris will run for reelection to the Senate in 2022 and should be expected to win quite easily.”
From there, Harris’s political future could get a little more interesting.
McDaniel believes Harris won’t challenge California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 but “will be a very formidable candidate” for California governor in 2026.
“I think her role will be much the same as it was before,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told the Washington Examiner.
Michael Kapp, Democratic National Committee member from California, said Harris could have another presidential race in her.
“Richard Nixon lost and then won the presidency. So did George H.W. Bush,” Kapp said. “Women, especially women of color, are treated differently in our society, which unfairly demands that they must meet higher standards that white men do not have to meet. This disparity is especially acute for women of color running for elected office.”
