Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Kamala Harris has now ended the suspense by announcing she will not, after all, run for governor of California in 2026. No one should have been surprised to learn, after she ended a long rise through the ranks of California elected positions with a tough stint as vice-president and then as a substitute presidential nominee, Harris didn’t particularly want to take on the punishing job of governing America’s largest state, which faces major fiscal problems as well as guerrilla warfare with the federal government. This will liberate the many potential Democratic candidates for that office in light of the term limits facing Gavin Newsom next year. And perhaps the decision reflects her own recognition that she isn’t necessarily a slam-dunk certainty as a candidate, as shown by the fact that her most formidable rivals (i.e., Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, former attorney general Xavier Becerra, former congresswoman Katie Porter, and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa) didn’t bother waiting for her to deal herself in or out.

Harris’s statement didn’t rule out the other political option said to be on the table for her — a third presidential campaign in 2028:

For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office. I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.

Harris’s “own plans” probably won’t be of great interest to political junkies unless they involve another run for the White House. But if she moves in that direction, it won’t be as a presumptive front-runner, despite her advantages in name recognition and the admiration her improvised 2024 campaign undoubtedly inspired. She would be just one of a horde of would-be candidates in a party that is ready to put the disaster of the last campaign as far behind it as possible and is sure to value electability above all other traits. For a two-time loser who won’t even have a geographical base to call her own (Newsom is the most certain 2028 candidate of them all, and his days of deferring to Harris’s ambitions are long gone), another national campaign could be painful and unsuccessful.

The former veep can obviously take her time in planning next steps, but in examining her plight, I’m reminded of what a veteran baseball pitcher once said about the way to get over a sore pitching arm: “First you take a year off. Then you retire.” Kamala Harris is halfway there. She has many opportunities for enjoying private life and continuing her public service somewhere, anywhere, other than on the campaign trail.

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