Former Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s leading voices ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, expanding her national profile with fundraising activities, political backing, and public appearances after maintaining a relatively low profile for more than a year since her defeat in the November 2024 election.
Harris, age 61, has spent the past several months on a cross-country book tour promoting her memoir 107 Days, chronicling her swift presidential run after President Joe Biden’s late withdrawal from the race. This six-month tour has taken her to diverse audiences across the country — from California to Mississippi — and has fueled ongoing speculation about a potential third presidential run in 2028.
Her return to politics has been strategic and methodical. Her first major speech after leaving office took place in April 2025 at an Emerge America gala in San Francisco, where she accused President Donald Trump of orchestrating “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history” and warned that constitutional checks and balances “have begun to buckle.” She described his tariff policies as “reckless” and said they threatened to push the country into recession.
Since that speech, Harris has dramatically ramped up her public profile. In January 2026, she addressed attendees at the annual MLK Interfaith Breakfast in Chicago, urging them to “bear down” and resist the Trump administration’s agenda. “They may want us to be afraid, to be divided, to be silent,” she told the crowd. “But we won’t give them that satisfaction.”
In March 2026, Harris addressed a packed crowd in Madison, Wisconsin, the day after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began, offering sharp condemnation of Trump’s decision. “In the last 48 hours Donald Trump has dragged America into a war that we don’t want,” she told the audience at the Orpheum Theater, pointing out that news reports indicated three American soldiers had died in what she called an “unauthorized war.”
Harris is now taking her midterm campaigning to the South. CNN reported this week that Harris has scheduled stops at fundraising functions for the Democratic state parties of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia during the week of April 13, with a keynote speech planned at the Arkansas Democrats’ annual Fisher Shackelford Dinner in Little Rock on April 25. People familiar with her schedule say conversations about additional stops through summer and autumn are underway.
The Arkansas appearance holds particular significance — it will mark her first official keynote speech since her 2024 election defeat to Trump. The gathering is also slated for the same night as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which Trump has said he will attend.
Beyond her Southern swing, Harris has been busy with endorsements and organizing activities. She has recorded commercials for the Democratic National Committee and Virginia Democrats ahead of a ballot initiative scheduled for April 21. She backed former aide Dan Koh in his Massachusetts congressional primary, supported Helena Moreno and Zohran Mamdani in the New Orleans and New York City mayoral races, and has stayed in touch with several recent primary winners including James Talarico in Texas, Juliana Stratton in Illinois, and Scott Colom in Mississippi.
On the digital organizing front, Harris reactivated her former “Kamala HQ” social media presence as an initiative called “Headquarters,” billing it as a central hub for Democratic messaging, grassroots organizing, and activist mobilization ahead of the midterms. Though stopping short of a formal campaign announcement, the move marked her most significant organizational step since the 2024 presidential race.
Harris has ruled out running for California’s governorship in 2026. “For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” she said when announcing that decision in July 2025, though leaving open the door for a future presidential bid. A March 2026 survey by the Public Sentiment Institute placed Harris in second position among Democratic primary voters for 2028, receiving 16.7 percent backing, behind former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at 18.4 percent.
Harris has not formally declared any plans for 2028, but her expanding schedule, Southern outreach campaign, and continued fundraising work suggest that she intends to remain a central figure in Democratic politics through the midterm cycle and beyond.
