Fmr. Communications Director for Kamala Harris: ‘There Is an Appetite for Kamala Harris to Run’

ALCINDOR: “And, Ashley, I want to play some sound for you of Vice President Harris. She talked about the fact that she might run for president again. Take a listen.”

[Clip starts]

KUENSSBERG: “Have you made a decision yet?”

Harris: “No, I have not. I am not done. I have lived my entire career a life of service. And it’s in my bones. And there are many ways to serve.”

[Clip ends]

ALCINDOR: “She said that a woman would be elected in the lifetime of her grandnieces. And she said that possibly could be her. Do you think, though, that there’s an appetite within the Democratic Party to see the Vice President run again?”

ETIENNE: “I definitely think there is. I think she — I mean, remember, 73 million people voted — plus — voted for Kamala Harris. More people voted for her than any other Democrat in the history of our nation. So there is an appetite for Kamala Harris to run, but I would say, I wasn’t surprised by this notion, but I do think what happens after this announcement is going to be very important to her — for her, how she continues to position herself. Because you look at potential competitors like Gavin Newsom is positioning himself incredibly well to run for president. He’s activating the base. He’s turning the mirror on Donald Trump, having some some fun with it. He’s taking him to task in the courts through redistricting, through legislation. So he’s doing an all-out assault on Donald Trump in a way that is activating the base and igniting a level of excitement behind the Democratic Party as a whole. So she’s got to figure out, how can I compete with that?”

ALCINDOR: “Ashley, also wanted to ask you, though, because I talked to my Harris sources and they echo that. They say, yeah, she could run again. But then I think, she lost every single battleground state and the popular vote to President Trump. I wonder how Democrats are talking about that and how much she would have to sort of navigate that if she were to run again?”

ETIENNE: “Well, I mean, here’s the reality, the Democratic Party is facing a three-alarm fire. We’ve got the crises of, identity crises that we’re in, who are we? What do we represent? There’s still questions around that. We’ve got a consistent bleeding of support from our base since 2012. You’ve got a trust gap that is growing between the Democratic Party and many of its base voters over the past 10-15 years. So the party itself — and it’s got an aging infrastructure. The party itself has problems that it needs to address separate and apart from who’s going to be at the top of the ticket in order to win those battleground states. We’ve got to stop playing in the Beltside game — in the Beltway game. We’ve got to get out into these states, start reinvesting in our infrastructure on the ground, building it up from the ground, not just in these battleground states, but even beyond the battleground states, and start playing in new areas. So I think that the party itself needs to do a lot of work separate from who’s going to be at the top of the ticket.”