Kamala Harris faces Democratic doubts over 2028 as allies push back on claims she’s squandered her chance

As former Vice President Kamala Harris weighs another White House run in 2028, a longtime advisor is firing back at Democratic strategists and donors who argue she has squandered an opportunity to politically reinvent herself following her 2024 election defeat.

Veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, an outside advisor to Harris, pushed back against the criticism highlighted in a new Politico report, defending Harris' policy proposals and campaign activity as Democrats debate whether the former vice president deserves another shot at the White House. Cardona argued the story was "infuriating in its silliness."

The report, based on interviews with nearly 20 California-based Democratic donors and strategists, highlighted growing skepticism among some party insiders about Harris' political future and whether she has done enough to distinguish herself from her unsuccessful 2024 campaign.

Longtime Democratic strategist Doug Herman, a veteran of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, told Politico that Harris "totally blew it ... She hasn’t gotten into the mix."

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Former Gov. Jim Hodges of South Carolina, the lead off state in the Democratic Party's 2028 presidential nominating calendar, told Politico, "I don’t see anything different myself. It seems like more of the same to me."

But Cardona, a veteran of the Bill Clinton administration, the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama presidential campaigns who currently serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee, disagreed that Harris had failed to spell out what she would offer Democrats anxious for change.

"How can you state that she hasn’t done anything new or groundbreaking or talked about new initiatives or policies and then lay out exactly those policies — like proposing an expanded Supreme Court, lowering the voting age to 16, making D.C. and Puerto Rico states. Those are pretty groundbreaking policies!" Cardona told Fox News Digital, as she pointed to some of Harris' moves since the end of former President Joe Biden's administration.

Harris, the nation's first Black vice president, has also said that Black people should be "transactional voters," instead of automatically supporting Democratic candidates.

"She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t," Cardona argued, adding that Harris "is still the most qualified person to be president of the United States that is mentioned as a possible candidate for 2028."

Harris has been crisscrossing the country this year, first on a book tour for her best-selling campaign memoir "107 Days" and currently to support fellow Democrats running in the midterm elections.

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While Harris has teamed up with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and congressional nominees in her home state, some Democratic nominees running in red states made headlines in recent weeks by asking the former vice president not to campaign with them.

But Cardona said, "Harris has been out there nonstop talking to young voters, women voters, Black voters, Latino voters, and she has been asked by many candidates to come and campaign with them. She has focused her energies on winning the midterm elections. Can you imagine the backlash if she was out there focusing on herself and how she can remake the Democratic Party?"

Harris replaced Biden as the Democrats' 2024 presidential nominee after he ended his re-election bid following a disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump. Her truncated three-month presidential campaign ended in defeat, with Trump narrowly sweeping all the key battleground states as he won back the White House.

If she runs a third time for president, Harris will enjoy instant name ID and plenty of goodwill from within her party. But she would also face a Democratic base trying to move past the 2024 election setbacks, and she would likely be part of a very crowded and competitive 2028 primary field.

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A Democratic consultant, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely, told Fox News Digital that "voters feel like they haven't heard much from Harris, which means bad memories from her 2024 election loss remain fresh in their minds."

But longtime Democratic strategist Michael Ceraso said that consultants "are not voters."

"I just don’t trust that the consulting class really has a finger on the electorate," he told Fox News Digital. "To listen to consultants saying Harris has blown it – presidential politics hasn’t really even started yet. These consultants are just getting soundbites."

Ceraso noted that it took Biden three runs to win the White House.

"The third time was the charm and everybody said to Biden when he ran the third time, ‘why are you running.’ Well guess what, he ended up becoming the nominee and the president," he said. "Why can’t Harris look at that template and say ‘that can apply to me too.’"