Former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine said on Friday that possible 2028 presidential contenders in former Vice President Kamala Harris’ party were refraining from criticizing her because they believe her failure is inevitable.
Democrats who are not potential contenders told The Daily Caller on Thursday that they were not completely sold on Harris’ rebrand after she and her team announced that her 2024 campaign X account, previously called “KamalaHQ,” would be called “Headquarters” and focus on being a “new Gen-Z led progressive content hub.” Turrentine asserted on Newsmax’s “American Agenda” that targeting Harris could backfire and repel black female voters when it was wiser to let the former vice president “implode.”
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“She looks at the crowds on this book tour where she’s packing auditoriums, she looks at book sales, which — I’ll give her credit — she sold a lot of books,” Turrentine said. “And she sees these polls and thinks, ‘Why not me?’”
“Here’s the irony of this: Democrats aren’t attacking her because they think that she’ll implode for the third time. Remember in ’19, she never even made it to Iowa,” he added. “She just deflated … And then obviously what happened in ’24, I think the best thing she had was it was a short campaign. The longer it went, people think the worse she would have done. So, people say, ‘Why should I bother wasting breath attacking her and alienating black women when she’s going to do it for herself?’”
In addition to ending her 2020 presidential campaign before the Iowa Caucuses, she secured the 2024 nomination without primary voter approval and lost all seven swing states, along with the popular vote, against President Donald Trump.
“[I] didn’t think she was going to make some presidential announcement this early, but it was telling how ominous it felt,” a former Biden-Harris White House aide told the Caller on Thursday. “Everyone kind of felt nervous. It’s easier when she’s on the book tour. That’s predictable.”
Most major donors in 2025 denied the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) request to hold a fundraiser in the San Francisco, California region featuring Harris as a headliner, several individuals familiar with the discussion told The Wall Street Journal in October.
The Harris campaign and the Democratic Party reportedly spent almost $1.5 billion in 2024 despite her presidential bid only being 107 days, resulting in debt.
“Stick to the aunties and the adults who come out to your book tour,” the former Biden-Harris White House staffer who talked to the Caller said. “Everybody who’s interested should run for president, but those who put [the Democratic National Committee] in millions of dollars of debt probably should think twice.”
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