Democrats are turning on one of their own — and this time, it's not a Republican doing the attacking.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has kept the door open to a 2028 presidential run, is facing mounting frustration from party donors and strategists who say she squandered the past year by offering voters nothing in the way of a renewed vision, according to reporting from Politico and Fox News.
The criticism isn't coming from the Right. It's coming from the people who once wrote her checks.
According to Politico, which interviewed nearly 20 Democratic Party donors and strategists across California and the country, Harris "has offered voters almost nothing in the way of specifics about how she would remake a Democratic Party hungry for change after another term of Donald Trump."
The report describes a former vice president who has retreated to friendly audiences, avoided the press, and sidestepped the ideological civil war consuming her party — acting, as Politico put it, "more like a party elder at a time when voters and donors are demanding a break with the past."
One Democratic strategist summed it up bluntly to Politico: "She totally blew it."
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
Despite the internal griping, Harris remains the early polling front-runner for the 2028 Democratic nomination — a fact that infuriates her critics and complicates the narrative that she's finished.
A Financial Times/Focaldata survey released October 11 found Harris with 30 percent support among Democrats considering the presidential nomination, compared to 15 percent for California Governor Gavin Newsom. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tied for third at 9 percent each, while Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff followed at 8 percent.
The survey was conducted October 2-5 among 2,553 U.S. adults.
Those numbers track with earlier polling. A Harvard CAPS/Harris survey in late September put Harris at 38 percent and Newsom at 17 percent. An Echelon Insights poll earlier that month showed Harris leading Newsom 24 percent to 14 percent.
Neither Harris nor Newsom has formally announced a 2028 campaign.
Allies Push Back
Harris adviser Maria Cardona fired back at the critics, defending the former vice president's approach and pushing back on claims that she's wasted her opportunity to redefine herself.
Cardona's defense came as Fox News reported on the growing Democratic doubts, with donors and strategists questioning whether Harris has done enough to earn a second look from voters who rejected her in 2024.
The criticism centers on what Harris hasn't done: she hasn't articulated how she would expand her appeal to the voters who rejected her, hasn't engaged with the media in any meaningful way, and hasn't weighed in on the ideological battles raging within the Democratic Party.
As HotAir noted, Harris "never offered a vision of what she would do differently from Joe Biden" during her 107-day 2024 campaign. "She never attempted to expand her appeal. Harris barely interacted with the press during her 107-day campaign, and every interaction turned into a disaster on the rare occasions she did."
The HotAir analysis added: "Rather than offer a clear and original approach to a presidential campaign, Harris did nothing but talk about Donald Trump and how he should be disqualified from the election. Two years later, Harris had not learned a darned thing. And Democrats have noticed."
What Harris Hasn't Said
Harris said in July that she had not made a decision about another White House campaign. An October 6 Washington Post report described her as facing competing pressures within the party — some Democrats pointing to her experience and established support base, others questioning whether the party should move on after its 2024 loss.
What remains unclear is whether Harris will actually enter the 2028 race, and if she does, whether she can convince skeptical Democrats that she's more than a rerun of a losing campaign.
The Politico report noted that the most remarkable aspect of the internal Democratic criticism is how willing sources were to go on the record — a sign that the frustration with Harris isn't isolated but widespread.
Our Take
Here's the thing about Kamala Harris: she's never been able to answer the most basic question any candidate faces — why should voters pick you?
In 2024, she ran a campaign built entirely on not being Donald Trump. She offered no vision, no policy specifics, no compelling argument for why she deserved the job. And she lost. Badly.
Now, two years later, Democrats are finally admitting what conservatives knew all along: Kamala Harris hasn't learned a thing. She's still hiding from the press, still avoiding the tough questions, still acting like the nomination is owed to her rather than earned.
The polling that shows her leading the 2028 field doesn't reflect her strength — it reflects how weak the Democratic bench is. When your front-runner is someone who couldn't beat Donald Trump in 2024 and hasn't done a single thing since to improve her standing, that's not a flex. That's a problem.
And here's the reality: no amount of friendly media appearances or adviser pushback can change the fundamental fact that Harris is a flawed candidate with a thin resume and a history of word-salad answers that make voters cringe.
The Democratic donors and strategists complaining now? They're just catching up to what the American people already knew.
So here's the question, Patriots: If Democrats are this frustrated with Kamala Harris, why is she still their best option? Maybe it's because the party has no bench, no vision, and no answers. Or maybe — just maybe — they're all just as out of touch as she is.
Either way, one thing is certain: the more Democrats fight among themselves, the better it is for America.
