Vice President Kamala Harris led Congress as they officially recognized President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance as the winners of the 2024 election on Monday.
Within less than an hour of reading the certificates from the states and D.C., the Electoral College votes were sent to the House and Senate. The GOP ticket won 312 of them.
Harris watched the proceedings as president of the Senate after losing the election for president. Harris officially announced the winners and the final count.
Harris made a brief statement to the media soon after and she looked less than thrilled after certifying her own election loss to Trump.
“Today I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Which included today performing my constitutional duties to ensure that the people of America, the voters of America will have their votes counted, that those votes matter, and that they will determine, then, the outcome of an election,” Harris said.
“I do believe very strongly that America’s democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it. Every single person, their willingness to fight for and respect the importance of our democracy. Otherwise, it is very fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis. And today, America’s democracy stood,” Harris added.
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For her part, Harris is not planning to “go quietly into the night” after she was thumped in the 2024 presidential election.
During a segment on CNN, reporter Isaac Dovere revealed that Harris privately tells backers she is considering running for governor of California in 2026 or president in 2028. Harris also reportedly does not want her “final act” to be certifying Trump’s election victory over her.
“We haven’t seen or heard much from Vice President Kamala Harris since she lost the election last month,” CNN’s Manu Raju told CNN’s viewers. “But the Democratic Party still reeling from Trump’s victory.”
Dovere said that Harris is mulling two options.
“What she’s been saying to people over the last couple of weeks, donors, other supporters that she’s been talking with, As you haven’t seen the last of me, I’m not going quietly into the night. Advisers, people close to her are debating about what that means. They do not want her final official act ever to be essentially certifying Donald Trump’s win over her, especially four years after January 6th. And so they look at this governor’s race in California in 2026, and it seems to them like a layup essentially, that she would probably clear the field or mostly clear the field and she would get to be governor of California,” Dovere said.
“But if she does that, that means that she couldn’t turn around and run for president again in 2028. She’d need to essentially declare right away. And that is what it really comes down to because there are people close to her who say she didn’t get a fair shot this year,” Dovere added.
Dovere continued, “It wasn’t it wasn’t up to what she could have done. And look how well she performed anyway. She should get to go again in 2020. And then there are ones who say, look, with where things are with the Democratic Party at it, she would not have a clear field or a cleared field, rather, in the Democratic primary and could lose the nomination. And to come off of 2024 into that would be really terrible.”
Harris allegedly told associates she was “staying in the fight” and considering a 2028 presidential campaign or a California gubernatorial run in 2026, prompting Democratic strategist Theryn Bond to urge Harris not to run for president again.
