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As Kamala Harris<\/a> mulls whether to run for president again, she’s throwing herself into the midterms by campaigning with fellow Democrats, starting with a Tuesday trip to Michigan on behalf of Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed<\/a>. <\/p>\n It\u2019s an especially notable destination for the former vice president. Michigan was one of seven battlegrounds she lost to Donald Trump two years ago, and it’s now one of six states that will start Democrats’ next presidential nominating process. Harris has additional rallies scheduled in Nevada and Georgia, two other key places on the political map.<\/p>\n Her campaigning could serve to solidify or undermine her status as a potential Democratic front-runner<\/a>. Although she’s one of the nation’s best-known politicians and a barrier-breaking figure, there are others eager to turn the page after she failed to defeat Trump when she replaced President Joe Biden on the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she\u2019s run her course,\u201d said Barry Goodman, a Democratic National Committee member from Michigan who raised money for Biden and then Harris. \u201cI just don\u2019t think her running again would be the right thing for America moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Some Democratic candidates, especially in places Trump won handily, have curtly dismissed any possibility of campaigning with Harris<\/a>. \u201cNo thanks,\u201d Iowa gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand told Politico. \u201cLet\u2019s move on. We need some new leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n But plenty of Democrats, including some influential Black women who helped convince Biden to select Harris as his running mate in 2020, said she has more than earned the space to consider her options without being rushed or pilloried. Underscoring her unique position, California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently told CNN that he would not seek the nomination if Harris does. <\/p>\n \u201cKamala isn\u2019t under any deadline to run for anything,\u201d said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair who managed Al Gore\u2019s presidential campaign in 2000. She called it a \u201cwaste of time\u201d to relitigate Harris\u2019s truncated 2024 campaign<\/a> and said any White House hopefuls \u201cshould follow Kamala\u2019s lead and get out there” by trying to help midterm candidates. <\/p>\n Harris has not announced any upcoming trips to South Carolina, where Democrats will hold their first primary<\/a>. Antjuan Seawright, a political consultant in the state, said she could make a strong case for herself but another campaign would need to look and sound different. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s going to have to admit that she was wrong about some things,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Harris has painful political history in Michigan. During the 2024 campaign, the state’s prominent Arab American communities were outraged over Biden’s support<\/a> for Israel’s military operations in Gaza, and they were disappointed<\/a> when Harris did not break with him after she became the party’s nominee. <\/p>\n El-Sayed, on the other hand, is an outspoken critic of Israel who has described the war as a genocide against Palestinians, an accusation rejected by Israel. He’s been viewed warily by some Jewish voters<\/a>, which he’s tried to address by apologizing for some past controversial comments. <\/p>\n El-Sayed told MSNOW that “there were some hurt feelings\u201d in Michigan over the 2024 election, with some Black voters feeling like Arab Americans didn’t do enough to help Harris. <\/p>\n With the former vice president coming to visit, he said it’s a chance “to bring communities together that have often been torn apart by recent events.\u201d<\/p>\n Their joint appearance will be closely scrutinized for other reasons too. Harris has a strained relationship with the party’s progressive wing, which includes El-Sayed, and El-Sayed is eager to solidify establishment support during his campaign against Republican nominee Mike Rogers, a former congressman. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can build together on the areas of agreement, and we can come to understand each other far better on the areas where we might have seen eye to eye, and I think her coming into town will help us to do that,\u201d El-Sayed said. <\/p>\n Harris’ political travel has been light compared to potential presidential candidates like Pete Buttigieg, who ran in 2020 before serving as Biden\u2019s transportation secretary. He recently visited South Carolina<\/a> and he’s been stumping for other Democrats in the midterms. <\/p>\n Harris went to South Carolina in the spring, but for smaller, local party events. She recently spoke on an organizing call aimed at registering and turning out 1 million more Black voters. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s value in doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes instead of being front and center, especially for her,” said Bre Maxwell, a Democratic National Committee member from South Carolina. She said there’s little benefit for Harris to insert herself into news cycles knowing \u201cshe\u2019s still a target of Donald Trump right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Jaime Harrison, a South Carolinian who served as national party chair when Biden and Harris were in the White House, said the former vice president\u2019s stature affords her the advantage of time that other potential candidates will not have. <\/p>\n \u201cMany of these folks who do get in quickly would love to have that type of name ID, would love to have that type of network, to have that type of email list,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n Harris herself has said multiple times, including in an Associated Press interview last year<\/a>, that she feels no rush to decide her next move. \u201cRight now \u2013 midterms, midterms, midterms,\u201d she told Megan Rapinoe on a recent podcast. Harris spokesman Eduardo Negr\u00f3n declined comment when asked about her timeline. <\/p>\n Harris’ other campaign events this fall include stops for Nevada\u2019s Democratic candidate for governor, Aaron Ford, and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has generated 2028 chatter of his own as he seeks reelection. <\/p>\n \u201cShe is certainly being strategic,\u201d said Seawright, the South Carolina political consultant. <\/p>\n He noted that Harris\u2019 tour for her campaign memoir, \u201c107 Days,\u201d hit virtually every major Southern city in states where Black voters hold strong sway in presidential primaries that come early in the nominating process. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Goodman said he\u2019s heard no evidence that Harris is working the party\u2019s top donor network. Harrison said he hasn\u2019t heard from her since last December.<\/p>\n Harris first ran for president in the 2020 cycle, when she was a U.S. senator from California. But she dropped out<\/a> late in 2019, before any primary votes were cast. <\/p>\n Some progressives saw the former prosecutor as part of a criminal justice establishment that disproportionately imprisons Black men. Some moderates saw her as another San Francisco liberal. <\/p>\n Biden chose Harris as his running mate, and she became the first woman and Black person to serve as vice president. <\/p>\n When Biden dropped his reelection bid after a disastrous debate performance, Harris generated visible enthusiasm, drawing crowds that rivaled or exceeded Trump\u2019s. She delivered a convention address and debate performance that most analysts lauded. <\/p>\n But she could not distance herself from Biden on inflation or immigration. Harris infamously told friendly interviewers on \u201cThe View\u201d that she couldn\u2019t think of anything<\/a> she\u2019d have done differently than Biden. Trump hammered her with advertisements exploiting her support for transgender rights, saying \u201cKamala is for they\/them. President Trump is for you.”<\/p>\n If she runs again, Seawright said, Harris would need to emphasize moderate positions and “be willing to say, you know, \u2018I\u2019ve rethought some things.\u2019\u201d Voters, he said, \u201creward that kind of authenticity and humility.\u201d <\/p>\n Harrison argued it would be easier for Harris to articulate her own agenda than when \u201cshe was a sitting vice president, somebody else\u2019s No. 2.\u201d But, he warned, she would also have to shed the pomp and circumstance of the vice presidency, not just its political burdens. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t act like a sitting vice president, standing up on that stage,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d tell her she has to run hard, just as hard as everybody else, working every rope line, taking every selfie.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike Biden’s handoff to her in 2024, Harrison said, \u201cThis is going to be the wild, wild west.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n