Kamala Harris lost every swing state to President Donald Trump in 2024.
Now her allies are floating her name for 2028, and the media is playing along like none of that happened.
But someone from inside the Democrat world just said out loud what most of them are only whispering.
The Aide Who Refused to Play Along
Michael LaRosa, former First Lady Jill Biden’s press secretary, appeared on Fox News’ America Reports and told host Gillian Turner that voters are tired of Harris — and he didn’t dress it up.
“She has been a public servant for 37 years,” LaRosa said. “I don’t know why she is still listening. She needs to stop listening and start leading.”
That’s not a critique from a Republican opponent or a conservative commentator. That’s someone who worked inside the Biden White House drawing a line.
“There is no appetite for another Kamala Harris candidacy and I hope her consultants — consultants are only as good, and they’re only as useful to you if they tell you the truth. They need to tell her the truth. That is that it’s not going to happen, for you the money won’t be there. She still hasn’t learned a lot from her poor instincts in the last campaign.”
That last line is worth sitting with. Not the money. Not the polling. Her instincts. A man who worked alongside the Biden team is saying the problem with Kamala Harris is Kamala Harris.
What Triggered the Conversation
Multiple Democrat aides and strategists recently told New York Magazine’s Intelligencer that Harris is the “fairly obvious” frontrunner for the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination, with several Harris aides speaking to the outlet regarding her potential chances.
LaRosa pushed back on this directly, arguing that Harris has decades of political experience and needs to instead “start leading,” and added that voters want a new presidential candidate.
Democrat strategist Minyon Moore had told the outlet, “She’s been listening to the American people and really trying to figure out what’s impacting them and how she can be of service to them.” LaRosa wasn’t buying it.
And he went further than just the money problem. He laid out a character critique that the party’s media allies would never touch.
“She doesn’t lead. She follows. She doesn’t take risks. She calculates. She doesn’t answer questions; she equivocates. She’s got to get over that if she wants to make a connection with people, but I don’t think she’s going to get a third at bat,” he concluded.
That’s a pretty thorough indictment from someone who, not long ago, was cashing a paycheck from the same administration that put her on the ticket.
The Polling Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
Harris received 36% support from Democrat and Democrat-leaning independent voters in an early 2028 primary poll conducted by Morning Consult. On paper, that looks like strength. In practice, it mostly reflects name recognition in a field where nobody else has broken through yet.
Harris held a double-digit lead over her closest potential competitor, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who garnered just 10% support from his party.
But polling this far out from a primary is basically a popularity contest among people who haven’t had to write a check yet. And LaRosa was direct about where the real verdict gets rendered.
One New York donor expressed doubts that Harris could convince major donors she could win the White House. That’s the thing about frontrunner status — it evaporates the moment the bundlers stop returning calls.
Democrat strategist Alex Hoffman put it bluntly: “I hope she runs. Because then she will lose, and we will never have to hear from her again. She will never win an election at a national scale. Never.”
So even among Democrats who want her to run, at least one of them is rooting for her to lose — permanently. That’s the state of the Kamala Harris 2028 movement.
What This Actually Means for the Democrat Party
When LaRosa was asked who he’d actually want to see run, he rattled off a list. “I want somebody who can run the country, I want somebody who is competent. I love Rahm Emanuel, Gavin Newsom. I like Pete Buttigieg. There’s a lot of people who are qualified and will be not only good candidates but good stewards of the office.”
Gavin Newsom. The man who ran California into the ground, presided over a homelessness catastrophe in every major city in his state, and spent years auditioning for a presidential run while his constituents fled to Texas and Florida. That’s the Democrat bench.
LaRosa said, “I think one of the problems is that Harris, like I said, she doesn’t lead, she follows.” But that description fits most of the names he offered up as alternatives.
The Democrat Party spent 2024 telling voters that Kamala Harris was the most qualified person in the country to be President. They suppressed any honest debate about her candidacy after Joe Biden stepped aside, coronated her without a primary, and then watched her lose every battleground state to a man they’d spent four years trying to destroy through the courts.
And now the same party infrastructure is quietly signaling she might be the frontrunner again. Not because she’s earned it. Because nobody else has stepped up to take the crown.
But LaRosa’s willingness to go on Fox News and say what he said tells you something about where the Democrat donor class actually is. When your own people are going on television to announce that the money won’t be there, that’s not a frontrunner. That’s a warning shot.
Harris ran for the White House in 2020 in a crowded Democrat field before Joe Biden picked her as his running mate, and she ran again in a sprint campaign in 2024 after Biden suddenly dropped out, before losing to President Donald Trump.
Two swings. Two losses. And the argument for a third run is essentially that nobody else has figured out how to beat her in a primary that hasn’t started yet.
That’s a thin foundation for a presidential campaign. LaRosa knows it. The donors know it. And if her consultants are doing their jobs, they know it too — they just may not have told her yet.
Sources: Mediaite, NewsNation, Fox News, The Hill, Morning Consult