Her book tour isn't going too well.

What’s next for Kamala Harris?

And what’s next for the Democratic Party?

When it comes to Kamala Harris and her future in politics, progressives are of two minds: On one hand, many think Harris got a raw deal in 2024. On the other hand, plenty think Harris should go away forever and stop dragging the Democratic Party through the mud to sell books.

“The Emptiness of Kamala Harris,” Ross Barkan proclaimed for The Intelligencer this week. “It is hard to see what kind of political career Kamala Harris will ever have again. This makes her unique among recently vanquished major-party nominees — barring a remarkable shift in circumstances, there really is nowhere else for her to go.”

It got worse from there:

“Harris, from both a politics and policy standpoint, has never been a true leader of the party, and her presence now is a reminder of how badly Joe Biden’s team erred in 2020 when they picked her for the ticket. Harris had been a shambolic presidential candidate, bleeding cash and dropping out before the Iowa caucuses. There were many other more capable politicians, women especially, who could have been elevated that year. Had Harris been a stronger politician, the disastrous Biden reelection saga may not have played out like it did. An elderly, senile president could have passed the baton more easily to a capable VP who seemed ready to battle Trump again. Biden’s inner circle didn’t trust Harris, and they ended up handing her the nomination only after the infamous televised debate Biden had with Trump. Harris became the Democratic candidate without having won a single primary vote.” — Ross Barkan. The Intelligencer.

Ouch.

And the hits just kept on coming for Harris.

“Kamala Harris’s election memoir shows just how deluded the Democrats still are,” Nesrine Malik wrote for The Guardian on September 29, 2025. “This unapologetic trawl through a doomed campaign reveals a celebrity-obsessed party high on its own supply. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.”

How do you really feel? Malik explains:

“Watching the Kamala Harris presidential campaign unfold last year, I remember thinking, and writing, about how striking it was that she had been rehabilitated almost overnight into a political titan. Authoritative accounts of her before that moment portrayed a lo-fi vice-president, who, even according to people who had worked to get her there, had “not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country”. Another striking feature of her campaign was how it leaned into vibes and spectacle rather than substance, or building faith in Harris as a clean break from an unpopular and visibly deteriorating Joe Biden. Her new book, 107 Days, a memoir of the exact number of days she had to win the presidency, goes a long way in explaining why that was. In short, Harris — and those around her, including supportive media parties — got high on their own supply.” — Nesrine Malik. The Guardian.

To be fair, there are plenty of Democrats anxious to turn the page — forever — on the disastrous 2024 election cycle. Kamala Harris and her inconveniently timed book tour make it difficult to do that. And that isn’t the only reason media progressives are ready to whistle past the graveyard of 2024.

“Dwelling on the 2024 Defeat Is a Waste of Time for Democrats,” decided Ed Kilgore for The Intelligencer on Monday. “Look, I get it: There are many reasons Democrats feel the need to look back at the electoral calamity of 2024. The Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, has books to sell. Joe Biden loyalists feel they must rehabilitate his tarnished image. Operatives and donors who were knee-deep in the Biden or Harris campaigns naturally have scores to settle and grudges to air. And above all, the ideological warriors of the Democratic left and center want to blame each other for the debacle, just as they’ve blamed every Democratic defeat large or small on each other since about 1968.”

But Democrats must stop this bout of self-reflection, argue Kilgore and others. Why? It’s giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

“The enemy,” being the Republican Party in the estimation of progressive media outlets, of course.

Conservative media outlets, meanwhile, are teeing up — anxious to remind voters about the many shortcomings of the Kamala Harris campaign.

“Kamala Harris’ flaws on full display during her tour de farce book tour,” guffawed the New York Posts’ Miranda Devine on October 12, 2025. “Harris’ flaws as a candidate have been on full display in her book tour — the inappropriate laughing like a hyena, the painfully inarticulate word salad, the constantly shifting accents and affects. It’s clear this is a person with no concrete sense of self, a woman who has been gifted big jobs and flubbed every one.”

Plenty of progressive media outlets are complaining about “The Damaged Democratic Party brand,” but no one seems exactly sure how to correct the situation — least of all Kamala Harris.

The shutdown isn’t helping the Democratic Party’s popularity much. President Donald Trump, buoyed by his recent success in negotiating a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, is showing every sign of shifting his administration into higher gear.

Momentum, for the moment, is with Donald Trump. 

Democrats, meanwhile, are in a terrible disarray.

They’ve managed to shut down the government, but what’s the endgame? They’ve managed to give the Democratic Party base something to crow about, but to what end?

What concessions do Democrats hope to achieve? What leverage do they have? Aside from permanently shutting down Washington, what is the plan?

Yet, aside from Kamala Harris, whom Democratic Party voters, donors, and analysts don’t seem to want, who else do progressives have to offer?

Former President Barack Obama’s legacy has been badly tarnished by President Trump’s miraculous peace gains in the Middle East — both during this current administration and his first term with the Abraham Accords.

Trump achieved his great successes by basically doing the opposite of what the Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations did.

For Democrats hoping for a midterm miracle, there is even more unsettling news.

“So, you know, if you go back six months ago, you go back to April, Kate Bolduan, what were we looking at?” explained CNN data analyst Harry Enten on Thursday. “Well, we were looking at the Democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives according to the Kalshi Predication Market Odds. We saw them at an 83 percent chance.”

“But those odds have gone plummeting down,” Enten fretted. “Now we’re talking about just a 63 percent chance, while the GOP’s chances up like a rocket, up like gold, up from 17 percent to now a 37 percent chance. So, it will look like a pretty clear Democratic — likely Democratic win in the House come next year has become much closer to a toss-up at this point, although still slightly leaning Democratic.”

“Democrats were way out ahead back in 2017 on the generic congressional ballot,” Enten added. “And now we’re basically looking at Democrats ahead. But again, they are so far in back of the pace that they set back there. And so, I think what a lot of folks are seeing, folks like myself, are saying, wait a minute, given what we might be seeing in redistricting, is this plus three going to be enough, Kate Bolduan?”

If not, 2026 might turn out to be an even tougher year for the Democratic Party than 2024 or 2025.

With Kamala Harris to lead them.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)