Kamala Harris blames humiliating 2024 loss to Trump on lack of time to campaign
WASHINGTON, DC: Former Vice President Kamala Harris has said that one of the biggest reasons she lost the 2024 election to President Donald Trump was the lack of time to mount a campaign.
“There are many factors, I think, that played into the outcome of that election,” Harris said during an appearance on 'The View' on Tuesday, September 23.
“But I think probably one of the biggest, in my mind, is we just didn’t have enough time.”
Her new memoir, '107 Days', a reference to the length of her campaign after President Joe Biden dropped out, details the difficulties of taking on a seasoned rival in such a short window.
“Biden decides not to run. The sitting vice president then takes the mantle, running against a former president of the United States who had been running for ten years, with 107 days until the election,” Harris said.
She went on to call the 2024 race, “the closest presidential race in the 21st century.”
Kamala Harris revisits costly but losing campaign
Despite raising and spending a staggering $1.5 billion in just 15 weeks, Harris lost the popular vote, the Electoral College, and all seven battleground states to Trump.
Her campaign never fully recovered from a disastrous October 2024 appearance on 'The View', where she fumbled a key question about how she would differ from President Biden.
Asked whether she would have done anything differently, Harris answered: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Kamala Harris mentions ‘gaffe’ during campaign that haunted her
In her memoir, Harris admits she had a sharper response prepared but failed to deliver it.
“I’m not Joe Biden and I’m certainly not Donald Trump,” she had planned to say.
“Throughout my career I have worked with Democrats, independents, and Republicans, and I know that great ideas come from all places. If I’m president, I would appoint a Republican to my cabinet.”
“But I didn’t say any of that,” Harris wrote, describing the moment as a “hand grenade” that exploded in her own campaign.
She recalled that her staff, watching from the set, even slipped her a note urging her to revisit the question. Though she eventually did, Harris admitted, “the damage was done.”
Kamala Harris refers her mistake as 'gift to the Trump campaign'
Looking back, Harris described the stumble as a “gift to the Trump campaign” that shackled her to Biden’s unpopular presidency.
“Why. Didn’t. I. Separate. Myself. From. Joe. Biden?” she writes with regret in 107 Days, acknowledging that her failure to draw a clear line from her former boss cost her dearly.
