Kamala Harris’s voice rang out across a convention hall packed with California Democratic activists, and she wore a beaming smile.
But the former vice president was not in the room where 4,000 party delegates had gathered in Anaheim, Calif., to prepare for next year’s elections. Instead, she spoke to them through a three-minute video address that drew tepid applause.
Ever since Ms. Harris returned home to California in January after losing last year’s presidential race, Democrats have wondered whether she would run for governor in 2026. Her entry would shake up the race, and many observers believe she would be the front-runner. But she has made few public appearances and offered little indication of which way she is leaning.
Her absence from the hall in Anaheim this weekend loomed over the state party convention like the pair of large video screens that carried her message. And that left many party activists questioning just how seriously she was considering running.
Some said they weren’t sure they wanted her to enter the race. “I don’t think she should get into the campaign for governor,” said Mark Gracyk, a delegate from San Diego who works for a water utility. “The working class would say, ‘Oh there she is again, she has the support of the elites.’”
Ms. Harris plans to decide by the end of the summer whether to run. She is weighing other possibilities, including another presidential run in 2028 or retiring from electoral politics. A spokeswoman for Ms. Harris did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
With Ms. Harris absent from the convention hall, other candidates for governor tried to make inroads with the delegates, mingling and posing for selfies.
Two potential 2028 presidential contenders were at the convention as well — Ms. Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Each delivered a thunderous speech that brought the crowd to its feet, cheering and applauding with fervor.
As Democrats nationally grapple with how to rebound from last year’s presidential and congressional losses, the possibility of Ms. Harris entering the governor’s race has prompted some trepidation for party members in California.
Sure, she would have the kind of name recognition that would make it difficult for a Republican to break through in a heavily Democratic state. She has experience as California’s attorney general and U.S. senator, and she could be the best hope for electing a female governor in a state that has never had one.
But backing Harris for governor might signal to voters that the party has not learned the lessons of last year’s losses. With Ms. Harris at the top of the national ticket, the party’s support declined among Black voters, Latino voters and men. She beat Donald J. Trump in California, but by a smaller margin than former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had four years earlier.
In her video address on Saturday, Ms. Harris encouraged California Democrats to keep up the fight against President Trump’s agenda, but she did not dwell on state issues.
“I wonder where her priorities are, and where she’s at right now,” Ayo Banjo, a delegate from Santa Cruz, said after Ms. Harris’s speech. “I do support her and think that she’s great, but right now I have more questions than answers.”
While many delegates expressed home-state pride in her race against Mr. Trump, others said they were frustrated that the Democrats had effectively had no presidential primary last year. They said that if Ms. Harris enters the race for governor, they expect a lively competition.
Eight Democrats are already running to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is barred by term limits from running for re-election next year. (Mr. Newsom did not attend the convention, either.) Most of those candidates spent the weekend pitching themselves to labor leaders, environmentalists and other key party constituencies.
“Two years ago, I launched my campaign to serve as governor of California, and I said all along, my first goal is that we have a woman in the governor’s chair in 2026,” Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis said as applause rippled through a meeting of the Democratic women’s caucus. “And my second goal is that it’s me.”
Her remark was a subtle acknowledgment that the race remains fluid. Ms. Kounalakis, a longtime friend and supporter of the former vice president, is expected to drop out of the race if Ms. Harris jumps in.
If other Democratic candidates were to drop out as well, and donors and elected leaders began to coalesce around Ms. Harris, it could look to voters as though she was once again being anointed as the party’s candidate
Some Democrats have made it clear, though, that they would stay in the race. Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles, recently attacked Ms. Harris and Xavier Becerra, a candidate for governor who was Mr. Biden’s health and human services secretary, for not doing more during Mr. Biden’s term to inform the public about the president’s declining health.
“What did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn’t either of them speak out?” Villaraigosa said in a statement last month.
Ms. Harris will have to consider whether she wants to endure the sparring of a campaign. The Republican candidates in the race have already attacked Ms. Harris, and Mr. Villaraigosa’s move showed that she would face difficult questions from fellow Democrats as well.
“It certainly won’t be another coronation,” said Dan Schnur, a longtime political analyst who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. “She may or may not become the next governor, but if she decides to try, no one’s going to hand it to her.”
Even so, California is a vast state with expensive media markets, and Ms. Harris would enter the race with the advantage of being the best-known candidate. She has been a formidable fund-raiser in the past, and her longstanding relationships with wealthy donors has been a strength.
Inside the convention hall, those who said they wanted Ms. Harris to run for governor expressed affection for her as a fellow California Democrat who rose through the ranks and broke barriers for women. Some said they had been hoping she would make a surprise appearance at the convention to announce her run.
“As a woman myself, and as a minority myself, I felt like I wanted someone like her representing me,” said Patricia Wenkart, a speech pathologist who lives in Tustin, Calif.
Some delegates who did not want Ms. Harris to run for governor said they worried that she would not connect with working-class voters. Others felt she wasn’t progressive enough, pointing to Ms. Harris’s lack of support for marijuana legalization when she was California’s attorney general, or her support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Still others said that running for governor was beneath her after she served as vice president.
Californians in general feel more positively than negatively about Ms. Harris. In a recent poll, 50 percent of respondents said they held a favorable view of her, compared with 46 percent who held an unfavorable view. The poll, conducted by the U.C. Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies, found that she was especially well-liked among women voters and among voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, crucial turf for Democratic candidates. The poll did not compare her with candidates running for governor.
A mile away in the Downtown Disney district of Anaheim, where visitors crowded into restaurants and milled about wearing Mickey Mouse ears, some Californians saw the governor’s race differently than the party activists did.
Michelle Garcia, who owns a skin care business in Riverside, said she was supporting Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County who is running as a Republican, because she saw him as tough on crime.
Archie Tan, a traffic engineer from Orange, Calif., said he had not paid much attention to the race yet, but was open to voting again for Ms. Harris, whom he supported last year.
Still, he said, the Democrats’ chaos during the presidential race left him with some reservations.
“It just feels like they didn’t have a good game plan,” he said.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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