Key Takeaways
- Kamala Harris says the shock of losing the 2024 election carried a similar sorrow as when she was grieving her mother’s death.
- She reflects on the 107-day campaign and how it shaped her connection with voters.
- Her memoir, “107 Days,” hints at continued public service, though she hasn’t confirmed a 2028 run.
Kamala Harris believed she would win the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump. The results determined a different reality that left her feeling gutted. In a new interview for “The Diary of a CEO” podcast, she shared a raw recollection of accepting defeat after an unprecedented campaign to become the country’s first female commander in chief.
“I was in a state of shock,” the former vice president told host Steven Bartlett about the devastating realization. She had to face the political upset head-on before her Republican opponent was declared the winner. she knew the race was over “when I got a call from my campaign manager that it looks like we need 200,000 more votes that we can’t find, meaning it’s just a map of numbers.” The public servant confessed, “The thing I kept saying over and over and over again — I was in a state of shock… I was so inarticulate [or] maybe very articulate. What I kept saying over and over again was, ‘My God, my God, my God’... I couldn’t stop.”
Trump secured 312 electoral votes and 49.8 percent of the popular vote compared to Harris’ 226 and 48.3 percent. She delivered her concession speech the following day on the campus of her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C. The trailblazer told Bartlett, “I haven’t felt that emotion [or] anything similar to the emotion I felt that day in quite some time, other than the grief I felt when my mother died. I felt — I knew what was going to happen to our country. I knew, I knew the harm that was going to happen to people.”
Kamala Harris reflects on 2024 campaign with no regrets
If she could do it all again, Harris would, even if it meant enduring the same outcome. Moreover, she noted, “To this day, men and women, girls and boys, come up to me and say there was something about that campaign that excited something in them… I don’t regret any of that… What I hope to do with my voice right now is to remind everyone: Please don’t let your spirit be defeated. We may not have won the election, but our spirit can’t be defeated because then they really win, and sometimes the fight takes a while.”
In her memoir, “107 Days,” she makes it known that her career in public service is not over, but what the future looks like exactly remains unknown.