NEW YORK — All former vice president Kamala Harris had to do was mention elections, and audience members at a civil rights conference here leaped to their feet and began chanting:
“Run again! Run again!”
Harris smiled and shushed the thousands packed into a hotel ballroom for the Rev. Al Sharpton’s annual National Action Network convention, then said later what many wanted to hear: “I’m thinking about it.” It was one of her most explicit signals yet that she could mount a political comeback, in response to Sharpton asking whether she’d seek the presidency in 2028.
Some Democrats and pundits have expressed skepticism about whether Harris should mount a national comeback after her bruising loss to President Donald Trump in 2024. But the warm reception she received from a crowd of largely Black voters Friday shows why the first Black woman to serve as vice president could still be a formidable force as Democrats approach the next presidential contest.
Harris appeared on the third day of a four-day event in which Sharpton, the commentator and civil rights activist, paraded a host of Democratic presidential hopefuls past members of his NAN organization from around the country. None drew as massive a crowd as Harris, with spectators filling every seat and standing several deep along the walls of a Times Square hotel ballroom.
Harris’s appearance was followed by a much quieter crowd for former transportation secretary and 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who drew polite response and then a standing ovation when he, too, hinted he was planning to run again.
Sharpton introduced Harris with a glowing tribute to their long association but in an interview was noncommittal about his support for her compared with other guests, which included Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Sharpton said that he is “not pushing anybody” as the Democratic favorite for 2028 but that he believes Harris remains a strong potential candidate.
“To say someone that got more votes than any presidential candidate in American history other than Trump [and Joe Biden] should be, two years later, out of the conversation is crazy,” Sharpton said. “She is a proven vote-getter, and I think she has a viable following.”
Pointing out that he ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004, Sharpton added that “if I was somebody thinking about running, I would not calculate her out of the race.”
High-quality polling on Democratic preferences for potential 2028 presidential candidates has been sparse, and many pollsters are reluctant to survey voters so early. Some polling has showed Black voters still hold Harris in high regard, including a September Washington Post-Ipsos poll that found that 72 percent of Black Democrats and Democratic leaners have favorable views of the former vice president. That compares with 50 percent for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), another potential presidential contender, but his lower rating is primarily driven by people having no opinion.
Overall, the poll found that U.S. adults overall were more likely to have an unfavorable impression of Harris, at 52 percent, than favorable, at 36 percent.
Harris has teased a potential political comeback before, including in a February interview when she said, “I might,” when asked whether she was thinking about another presidential run.
At the NAN event, Harris’s lengthy remarks about her experience sounded like a job résumé with an emphasis on foreign policy chops. “I served for four years being a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States. I spent countless hours in my West Wing office footsteps away from the Oval Office. I spent countless hours in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room. I know what the job is, and I know what it requires,” she said.
Harris also touted the time she has spent traveling around the country since losing the election and drew loud cheers of support when she criticized Trump for failing to end inflation and for choosing to go to war in Iran. She has lost sleep, she said, thinking about how Trump’s belligerence toward longtime allies and cancellation of foreign assistance programs such as USAID have altered America’s global standing.
When Sharpton asked directly whether Harris would run again, the crowd erupted before she could answer. When they finally quieted, she set them off again by saying, “Listen, I might.”
“The American people,” Harris later continued, “have a right to expect that anyone who wants to run for office and be a leader, that it can’t be about themselves and what they want for themselves. It’s got to be about the American people. And that’s how I think of it.”
Afterward, several in the audience said they were thrilled by the appearance.
“Oh, she was phenomenal,” said Sharmaine Byrd, 57, a pastor who runs a nonprofit community group in Brooklyn. She had watched all the speakers so far, she said, but Harris “is the one. I’m going all the way with her.”
Terryl Buford, 64, traveled from Memphis to the convention partly to see Harris, who he said “had a great point of view” and an impressive career. “She has a keen outlook on society and [a record of] giving back to society in a way that enriched America. And she’s a good motivator for women,” said Buford, a civil service worker.
Dorothea Caldwell-Brown of New York City, a retired lawyer, said she wasn’t sure about Harris when she jumped late into the presidential race in 2024 after President Joe Biden dropped out. “But what she was able to accomplish in a short time — I learned a whole lot about her strength and her stamina and her concern,” Caldwell-Brown said.
Harris “absolutely” should run again, she said.
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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