After her painful loss in the elections, what next?

Exactly two months after losing the election to Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the certification of her defeat.

As Senate president, she will stand on Monday at the House speaker's podium to lead the Electoral College vote count, officially cementing her rival's victory two weeks before he returns to the White House.

The circumstances are painful and embarrassing for a candidate who has criticized her opponent as an urgent threat to American democracy, but Harris' aides insist she will perform her constitutional and legal duty diligently and gracefully.

This is not the first time a losing candidate has led a joint session of Congress to count presidential electors for his opponent — Al Gore endured the indignity in 2001, and Richard Nixon in 1961.

But it's a fitting end to an unlikely election that saw Harris elevated from a stand-in for the nation's most senior president to standard-bearer for Democrats — whose fleeting campaign provided a jolt of hope for her party before the landslide loss exposed deep internal faults.

Harris and her team are now discussing her second bill, considering whether it includes another run for the White House in 2028 or pursuing a bid for the governor's mansion in her home state of California.

While the recent Democratic candidates who lost the election — Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton — have decided not to run for president again, aides, allies and donors say the massive groundswell of support Harris gained in her failed bid and the unusual circumstances of her intense campaign. Proving that there is still room for her to strive for the Oval Office.

They even point to Donald Trump's circuitous political path — the former and future president won in 2016 and 2024, though he lost as the incumbent in 2020.

But while many Democrats don't blame Harris for Trump's win, some — shocked by the bruising loss that threw the party's strategy into question — are highly skeptical about giving her another shot at the White House. Some strategists see a group of Democratic governors who have coalesced behind the vice president in 2024 but have ambitions of their own as new candidates with a much better chance of winning.

Harris herself is said to be in no rush to make any decisions, telling advisers and supporters that she is open to whatever possibilities await her after Inauguration Day on January 20.

She takes stock of the past few months, which have seen her launch a brand new campaign for the White House, vet her vice presidential nominee, lead a caucus, and take the country by storm in just 107 days. Her aides indicate that she will remain Vice President of the United States for at least another two weeks.

“She has a decision to make and you can't make it while you're still on the treadmill,” said Donna Brazile, a close Harris ally who has advised the government. “She may have slowed down — but she will be on the treadmill until January 20.” campaign.

“You can't put anyone in a box,” said Brazile, who ran Gore's campaign against George W. Bush. “We didn't put Al Gore in a box and it was clear that the country was deeply divided after the 2000 election.” His second life as an environmental activist. “All options are on the table because there is an appetite for change and I believe she can represent that change in the future.”

But the nagging question clouding any potential 2028 candidacy is whether the 60-year-old can separate herself from Joe Biden, something she failed to do on the campaign trail.

Her allies in the party say Biden's choice to seek re-election despite concerns about his age, then ultimately withdrawing from the race months ago, doomed her bid to failure.

Although Trump swept all seven battleground states and is the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, his margin of victory was relatively narrow while Harris won by 75 million votes, a result her supporters say cannot be ignored as she is currently anonymous. . The Democratic Party will be rebuilt over the next four years.

On the other hand, those close to Biden remain convinced that he could have defeated Trump again, despite polls showing that he was bleeding support from key Democratic voting blocs.

They point out that Harris failed where the president did not in 2020, performing poorly with key Democratic groups like Black and Latino voters. Critics continue to hammer her 2019 campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee, which has faltered in less than a year.

“People forget that if there had been a real primary (in 2024), she would never have been the nominee. Everyone knows that,” one former Biden adviser said.

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, praised Harris for reviving the Democratic base and helping key congressional races, but said the Trump campaign had succeeded in undermining her on crucial campaign issues including the economy and the border.

However, members of Trump's team, including top pollsters, acknowledged that Harris performed stronger as a candidate than Biden on certain issues such as the economy among voters.

However, there's no escaping that any 2028 Democratic primary contest will be an uphill battle, with rising stars like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom already considering a run for president.

Some Democrats say Harris will nonetheless start out on top, with national name recognition, a highly desirable mailing list and a large number of volunteers.

“What party doesn't want her to come help them set the table for the 2026 midterm elections?” Brazil said. He added: “It will have many opportunities, not only to rebuild, but to strengthen the coalition that has come together to support it in 2024.”

Others have suggested that she could exit the political arena entirely, and run a foundation or create a policy institute at her alma mater, Howard University, the historically black Washington-based college where she held her election night party.

The former state attorney general could also be a contender for secretary of state or attorney general in a future Democratic administration. She has to decide whether she wants to write another book.

For all of her choices, Harris told aides, she wants to remain visible and be seen as a leader in the party. One adviser suggested she could exist outside the internal political fray, taking on a more global role on an issue that matters to her, but that position is difficult without a platform as large as vice president.

In the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, she plans to embark on an international trip to multiple regions, according to a source familiar with the plans, signaling her desire to maintain a role on the world stage and build a legacy beyond being Biden. Number two.

For Harris and her team, the weeks following the election were humbling, a mixture of sadness and determination. Several aides described the three-month race that began when Biden dropped out as starting with the campaign “digging out of a hole” and ending with their candidate more popular than when it started, even if she didn't win.

“There is a sense of peace knowing that given the treatment we received, we got through the tape,” a senior aide said.

After the election, Harris and her husband, second-in-command Doug Emhoff, spent a week in Hawaii with a small group of aides to relax and discuss her future.

During a holiday party for employees at her official residence before Christmas, Harris recounted Election Night and how she gave an impassioned speech to her family when the results became clear.

“We're not having a pity party!” She told the audience her reaction that night.

Advisers and allies say she is still processing what happened, and wants to wait and see how the new administration develops in January before taking any position, let alone seeking to become the face of the so-called “resistance” to Trump.

Democrats have found that the resistance movement that took off among liberals in the wake of his 2016 victory no longer resonates in today's political climate, as the Republican has proven that his message and style appeal to a large swath of Americans.

They have adopted a more conciliatory approach to confronting the next president's agenda. As many Democrats put it: “What resistance?”

Although she has remained relatively low-key since her loss, Harris offered a glimpse into her mindset at a student event at Prince George's Community College in Maryland in December.

“The movements for civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights, and the United States of America itself, would never have come about if people had abandoned their cause after a lawsuit, a fight, or an election didn't go their way,” she said.

“We have to keep fighting,” she added, a phrase she has repeated since winning the Senate in 2016. “Everyone of us.”

What that means is less clear. For some donors and supporters, staying “in the fight” could translate into a run for governor of California in 2026, when Gavin Newsom will step down for a term-limited term and potentially pursue his own ambitions in the White House. Taking on the job, which leads the world's fifth-largest economy, would put Harris in direct conflict with Trump, who regularly attacks the country over its left-leaning policies.

But governing a major state is no easy feat, and would derail any presidential run, as she will be sworn in at roughly the same time she needs to launch a national campaign.

Those who spoke to Harris said she was undecided on the governor's race, which some allies described as a potential “culmination” of her career.

She has won statewide office three times as California's attorney general and later as a U.S. senator. But winning the governorship would give her another historic honor: becoming the nation's first black female governor.

However, some allies admit it will be difficult to go from being inside a 20-car motorcade and having a seat across the table from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the governor's mansion.

The private sector is another option.

“For women at other levels of office, when they lose elections, sometimes the options aren't as open to them as they are to men, who get an easy landing at a law firm or an insurance company, and that gives them a place to excel,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics. At Rutgers University: “Earn some money and then make decisions about what's next.”

“I don't think this will be a problem for Kamala Harris. I think doors will open for her if she wants to open them.”

But for Harris, who has held elected office for two decades and served as attorney general before that, an afterlife as governor may be a more suitable option.

One former consultant said: “When you have one client – ​​people – for your entire career, where do you go from here?”