Kamala Harris is finding the Midwest a little chilly, with one exception.
The former vice president is being welcomed to Detroit on Tuesday by Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, but other vulnerable Dems have made it clear they would prefer the losing 2024 presidential candidate stay away.
“No thanks,” Iowa Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand told Politico when asked whether he wanted Harris’ help.
“Let’s move on. We need some new leadership.”
Senate candidates in Iowa and Kansas have publicly distanced themselves from Harris, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, Democratic nominees in Texas and Arizona also told the newspaper they had no plans to campaign with her.
Kansas Senate nominee Adam Hamilton told Politico that he needs to appeal to Republican voters whose “worldview may be a bit different than Kamala Harris.”
Those blunt rejections come as new polling by Politico found that support for a third Harris presidential campaign is fading even in her home state, with just 28% of California voters excited about a 2028 run, according to a UC Berkeley Citrin Center-POLITICO poll. That was down 13 points since March.
Harris also faces resistance within her own party as 55% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they would not be excited about her running again, while only 10% believed she had a better chance than Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In perhaps a bit of political gamesmanship, Newsom told CNN in an interview aired last week that he doesn’t think Harris will run again, but he would bow down if she decided to jump into the 2028 race.
Democrats interviewed by the Times and the Associated Press said Harris, the first woman and first Black person to serve as vice president, offers a powerful draw for the party’s base ahead of the November midterm elections. But others view her as an unwelcome reminder of the unpopular Biden administration and a stinging defeat to President Trump.
El-Sayed, looking to shore up support from Black voters in Michigan, is taking a different tack.
The progressive former Detroit health director said Harris’ visit could help unite Democratic constituencies fractured over the war in Gaza during the 2024 election cycle.
“We’re building an electoral coalition here,” El-Sayed told The Associated Press ahead of their joint appearance.
Harris and El-Sayed were scheduled to participate in a discussion on Black maternal health, followed by a voting-rights forum with the local NAACP chapter, according to the Times.
The pairing offers potential benefits to both candidates.
Michigan’s large Arab American community sharply criticized the Biden administration’s support for Israel, contributing to tensions within the Democratic coalition before Harris narrowly lost the state to Trump.
El-Sayed told MS NOW that some Black voters were left with “hurt feelings” because they believed Arab American voters had not done enough to help Harris defeat Trump. He said her visit offers an opportunity to repair that divide.
“She understood just how frustrating that moment was and the challenges with the Biden-era policy toward Gaza going into 2024,” El-Sayed told the network. “This is an opportunity for us to come together.”
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Other Democrats have been considerably less enthusiastic, but Harris has publicly shrugged off the snubs.
“I support them in doing whatever they need to do to win,” she told MS NOW this month.
Harris is scheduled to campaign in Nevada with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Aaron Ford and in Georgia with Sen. Jon Ossoff, according to the AP. She is also expected to appear with two Democratic congressional candidates in California.
A July fundraising document obtained by the Times presented Harris as a potentially valuable midterm surrogate and sought money to support her political travel. But she has said she is in no hurry to decide on her 2028 plans.
“Right now, midterms, midterms, midterms,” Harris recently told former US women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe on a podcast.
