Vice Presidential Baggage: Why Veeps Almost Never Win, and Kamala Harris's Opt-Out of California Governor Race Is a Disastrous Omen for 2028 Dems

Jul 31

By Michael Kelman Portney

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: you don’t lose at the top of the ticket and get a second shot. Not in American politics. Unless your name is Nixon and you spend eight years rebuilding your image while the party burns down behind you, the electorate does not grant do-overs. This country might be addicted to sequels in Hollywood, but in politics, reruns tank.

Kamala Harris opting out of the California governor’s race in 2026 isn’t a retreat. It’s a signal: she’s leaving the field open to aim straight for 2028. And that’s not just wishful thinking—it’s a strategic misfire that confirms everything wrong with how the Democratic Party handles succession, legacy, and generational momentum.

This piece is not about Kamala Harris the person. It’s about what she represents: the vice-presidential trap, the illusion of inevitability, and the deep-rooted American instinct to reject continuity once it starts to look like stagnation.

The Veep Curse: The Numbers Don't Lie

Let’s walk through the stats:

49 people have served as U.S. vice president.
29 have run for president.
Only 10 ever won.
Of those, only four won while still serving as VP: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush.

Now here’s the kicker: only one of those wins happened in the last 200 years. That was George H. W. Bush in 1988. Since then? A graveyard of failed vice presidential campaigns:

Richard Nixon (1960) — lost to JFK
Hubert Humphrey (1968) — lost to Nixon
Walter Mondale (1984) — obliterated by Reagan
Al Gore (2000) — won the popular vote, lost the presidency
Mike Pence (2024) — never made it out of the primary
Kamala Harris (2024) — top of the ticket, lost both Electoral College and popular vote

Once you add in failed post-VP bids like Dan Quayle and Joe Biden's two pre-2020 implosions, the pattern becomes undeniable: being vice president is a curse, not a coronation.

Why It Fails: Americans Hate Political Inheritance

Americans love the idea of progress. They want every four or eight years to feel like a page turned, not a paragraph copied and pasted. When they vote for a president, they subconsciously expect the next act to evolve—not repeat.

There’s something deeply ingrained in the American psyche that rebels against monarchy, hierarchy, and inherited power. It’s not just ideology. It’s cultural muscle memory. Even when the electorate likes a president, they don’t want to feel owned by the same team forever. After eight years of anyone, even the loyalists start looking for the future.

And vice presidents? They’re not the future. They’re the shadow of the past. They’re a constant reminder of what was—not what could be.

Eight Years is the Shelf Life

Look at recent history:

Clinton → Gore: loss
Bush → no VP run (Cheney never wanted it)
Obama → Biden: win—but only after sitting out one cycle and facing a failing incumbent
Trump → Pence: humiliation
Biden → Harris? History says don’t bet on it.

The eight-year mark is where American voters begin to hunger for a reinvention of their own ideology. They don’t flip teams because they hate their side. They flip teams because they want to believe their side is capable of change.

The parties that understand this win. The parties that fight it lose.

Kamala's Exit: Not a Step Back, a Step Too Far

Kamala Harris announced on July 30, 2025 that she won’t be running for governor of California in 2026, despite high polling numbers, strong donor potential, and an open path to Sacramento. Her stated reason? To focus on supporting Democrats nationally. But anyone with a political brainstem understands this for what it is: a national placeholder.

She’s leaving herself available for 2028. Period.

That’s not ambition—that’s delusion. Because skipping a high-profile executive role to hover in limbo sends the opposite message: that you have no plan except hoping people forget why you lost the first time.

The Psychology of the Electorate: Change or Die

Americans are constantly sold the myth of experience, but they don’t actually value it in practice. What they value is momentum. What they crave is new energy. That’s why young candidates surge. That’s why first-timers explode in polling while "it's their turn" candidates tank.

Vice presidents, by design, aren’t built for momentum. Their role is support, stability, and loyalty. Great traits for governance. Terrible traits for campaigns.

Kamala Harris is caught in that trap. She has all the markings of someone who played the long game. But America doesn’t reward patience. It rewards ignition.

And Harris doesn’t ignite anyone. Not anymore.

Investing in the Past: The Democratic Suicide Move

There is no quicker way for a political party to kneecap itself than to invest in its own legacy instead of its future. The GOP figured this out when it abandoned the Bush era and lit the party on fire to usher in Trump. It was brutal. It was chaotic. But it worked.

Democrats, by contrast, can’t stop embalming their former champions and wheeling them back out for one more run. Clinton. Biden. Now maybe Harris. The party elite always looks to the last person who "deserves" it, instead of the person who can win.

Here’s the simple truth: voters don’t care who deserves it. They care who disrupts it.

Harris doesn’t disrupt anything. She’s a symbol of loyalty, stability, and bureaucracy. She’s a known quantity with a known ceiling.

If the Democratic Party wants to survive 2028, it needs to stop treating the vice presidency like a waiting room for coronation. It needs to start recruiting, funding, and platforming its next generation now.

Because if Harris becomes the nominee, the message won’t be "we’re ready to lead." The message will be, "we had no better idea."

The Strategic Dead-End

Let’s game this out.

Harris gets the nomination.
Republicans run a populist outsider—maybe someone even more polished and ruthless than Trump.
Harris tries to straddle the Obama legacy, the Biden record, and her own undefined brand.

Where does that end?

Not with victory. Not with turnout. Not with energy. It ends with resignation.

And all because the Democratic Party couldn’t let go of the idea that the vice presidency is a ladder.

It isn’t.

It’s a weight.

Final Thoughts: The Past Is Not a Platform

Kamala Harris’s decision to avoid the California governor’s race is being read in donor circles and Beltway salons as smart positioning. But to the American people, it looks like the worst kind of political behavior: someone waiting their turn.

We don’t reward people who wait their turn. We reward people who seize their moment.

Harris had her moment. She lost it.

To run again is not bold. It’s entitled. And if the Democratic Party doesn’t recognize that, they’re going to walk into 2028 with a ghost from 2024—and lose to someone who knows how to build, not inherit.

History doesn’t lie. Voters don’t forgive inertia. And political brands don’t get second lives.

Not in this country. Not at the top of the ticket. Not after eight years of borrowed power.

The vice presidency is not a bridge. It’s baggage. And in 2028, it’s dead weight.

portneymk .