In her campaign diary, Kamala Harris sounds like a politician who continues to dream of the White House

The cakes with ‘Madame President’ are already ready when it becomes clear to Kamala Harris on election evening that she will lose from Donald Trump. While an employee pains the letters of the baking to serve them to staff members, the defeated democratic candidate can hardly breathe. “My God, my God, what is going to happen to our country?” She wonders.

It is a scene from Harris’ Campaignagboek 107 Daysthat will be published this Tuesday. In it she looks back on her short, lost race to the White House. In July 2024, the vice president was hastily launched by the Democrats as their new candidate, after the deteriorating Joe Biden had left the race. Her book is based on notes that Harris took during the 107 days that left her until the election day.

Although the memoirs were established under strict confidentiality, publisher Simon & Schuster has been releasing fragments for drips to generate publicity for weeks. These first passages are about Harris’s relationship with Biden, the selection of her running And her further political ambitions.

Even on his worst days, Joe Biden was better able to make decisions than Donald Trump at his best

The bond with Joe Biden

Before following Biden, Harris was the not very visible vice president of the Biden unpopular government. Harris writes that just four months ‘too short time’ was changing this image. She also acknowledges that she realized “too late” what negative impact Biden had on her electoral opportunities. For example, she remains faithful to him during the campaign, for example by not giving any example in a TV interview what she would have done differently than her political boss.

According to her, there has been no conspiracy in the White House to keep prayer decay secret. “Even on his worst days he was better informed, better able to make decisions and with more compassion than Donald Trump on his best days. But at the age of 81, Joe also got tired.”

She does see a collective failure of her party: he should have run over Biden earlier to leave it at one term of office. “” The decision is up to Joe and [first lady] Jill ‘, we all always said, like in a mantra, as if we were all hypnotized. Was this decent or reckless? In retrospect I think: reckless. The bet was just too high. This decision should not have dependent on one person’s ego, one individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision. “

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After Biden has withdrawn, Harris can have one debate against Trump. About serves She a remarkable anecdote: minutes before this debate starts, Biden calls. Not to wish for success, but to complain that she was bad about him about democratic donors. “My head had to be clear. I had to be completely in the competition. I really didn’t understand why he called me now and let it go over him again.”

The choice for Tim Walz

To supplement her profile of woman in color, she is considering several white male vice president candidates. She would have preferred to have chosen Minister Pete Buttigieg (transport), but she will abandon it because he is married to a man. “He would have been an ideal partner if I had been a heterosexual white man myself,” writes Harris. “But we already asked a lot from America: to accept a woman, a black woman, a black woman with a Jewish man.”

For example, the choice between Governors Tim Walz from Minnesota and Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania goes. The latter falls off because she finds him too ambitious: “I kept a gnawing feeling that he was not satisfied with second place.” They also criticize her final (second) choice Walz. In debate with Trumps Running Mate JD Vance he tried to become too many “friends.”

Political future

Harris has been vague about her ambitions since her loss. Earlier this year she decided not to apply for the governorship of her home state of California. She remains one of the Democrats with the greatest national name recognition and at betting offices her chances of candidacy for the presidency are often the highest estimated.

In her final word Harris does not offer a definitive answer. Now that she “no longer holds the grandeur of a high office in DC,” she wants to “be with the people, in cities and communities where I can listen to their ideas about rebuilding trust, empathy and a government that is worth the ideals of this country.”

That sounds like someone who remains interested in the presidency. A few passages already harvested criticism from Democrats who are expected to show interest in the candidacy in three years. For example, Pete Buttigieg reacted ‘surprised’ to Harris’ disclosure that he fell as a gay man for the vice presidency. “I have Americans higher. In my political experience you win the confidence of voters based on what they think you can mean for their lives, not in which box you fall.”

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