Kamala Harris on Expanding Democratic Power in the South

Kamala Harris made a big return to the campaign trail in the fall of 2026, heading to such battleground states as Michigan, where she boosted US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and Georgia, where she campaigned with Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms. But Harris also visited places that rarely see former vice presidents, such as Columbus, Mississippi, where she appeared in a packed high-school gymnasium on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom. This campaigning, which she referred to as her “freedom tour,” has also taken the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee to Arkansas and Louisiana. Harris says she hasn’t decided whether to run for president again in 2028. But no matter what her own next step may be, she tells The Nation, she’s committed to boosting Democratic prospects in the too-long-neglected South.

—John Nichols

John Nichols: Let’s talk about the fight for Democrats in the South.

Kamala Harris: One of my favorite subjects.

JN: You have been appearing at party events and with candidates across the region.

KH: And for my book tour. The publisher [of the book, 107 Days] was like, “Well, we don’t normally do a lot of book tours in the South.” And I was like, “Well, we’re going to do that, and people will come.” And they did—often a thousand people.

JN: There has been a lasting debate within the Democratic Party about how to approach deep-red states. A lot of strategists make the mistake of arguing, usually behind closed doors, “Let’s just write them off.”

KH: That is a mistake…. There are people in the South who have profound needs for the things the Democratic Party says we stand for: affordable healthcare, affordable childcare, a meaningful job that leads to the ability to have opportunity for your children. The dignity of all people—equality, fairness.

That point being number one.

The other point I would raise is that if you look at what’s happening demographically in the country, there is a reverse migration happening toward the South—both in terms of families who, historically, were from the South as well as a lot of young families, because it’s more affordable. And the South, you know, in terms of topography, is beautiful.

JN: There’s also a political side to this. In several Southern states in 2024, you ran as well as or better than you did in several Northern states that were historically identified as more competitive. There’s a base to build from in the South, right?

KH: That’s right. And I feel so strongly that you have to be able to do battle, instead of sitting back and implicitly accepting the notion that you can’t win there. You certainly won’t win if you don’t do battle. And that requires, as we know, being present. And it requires an investment. And that is part of the failure [for national Democrats], which is a failure to invest in the infrastructure that would allow us to win. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then what do we do? We abandon the people of those states who want clean drinking water? Who want the freedoms we say we fight for? Who want Medicaid, because their rural hospitals are shutting down because of a lack of federal funding? Who, as I was saying in Mississippi, know they deserve better? And who know it doesn’t have to be that way?

Well, the Democratic Party’s got to get hip to that, too: It doesn’t have to be that way.

JN: When Democrats aren’t hip to that, it narrows the party’s path to governing majorities, right?

KH: That’s my point—absolutely right. It’s about: Are we gonna play small ball?

Look, everything worthwhile requires investment. And investment, by its very nature, includes planting some seeds for a return that might be a little ways down the road but will be well worth the investment.

JN: There may also be an opening now, because of widespread disdain for the GOP administration. Have you been surprised by the implosion of Trump’s approval ratings this year?

KH: I’m not surprised. I say it publicly because I mean it: This is the most callous, corrupt, and incompetent presidential administration we’ve ever experienced.… What has happened also is [Trump] has created a party—and they’ve allowed it—in his own image. This is not Ronald Reagan’s party. That’s so cliché; everybody says it. But he has created a party in his own image, including the callous nature. So am I surprised about that? No.