Today, former vice president Kamala Harris is scheduled to deliver the keynote address “at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, honoring the group’s role in electing more Democratic women in California politics.”  NBC News reports “Harris is expected to call out Trump over his policies and how she believes they are failing Americans.”

I am coming around to John Girardi’s conclusion that Harris isn’t really that interested in running for governor of California in 2026, and that people at the top levels of California Democratic politics either know it or strongly suspect it. Girardi wrote here at NR earlier this month, regarding Xavier Becerra’s announced gubernatorial campaign, “Harris would have such an advantage in a gubernatorial race based on name recognition alone that I think her presence would dissuade serious, non-desperate challengers (apologies to Katie Porter) like Becerra from running, or donors from backing them. I would guess Becerra took the donors’ temperature before announcing, many of whom likely gave to both his and Harris’s prior statewide campaigns.”

Reportedly, Harris gave herself a deadline of the end of the summer to decide whether she would run for governor. She’s also reportedly told friends and allies that she sees the choice as binary; if she becomes governor, she can’t run for president in 2028.

For someone who allegedly was thinking of running for governor, Harris has had the public profile of a member of the Witness Protection Program for the past six months. A significant chunk of Los Angeles burned down, and she made one brief tour of the Palisades. She certainly doesn’t seem to be acting like someone who intends to compete in an already-crowded Democratic primary that will be held June 2, 2026.

The fact that Harris is addressing a national group and plans to talk about Trump suggests her future ambitions are leaning towards another presidential campaign, not moving into the governor’s mansion.

Also note this detail in a recent New York Times story about Harris’ ambitions, referring to the April 1 Wisconsin state supreme court election:

Tellingly, however, Ms. Harris’s offer to visit Wisconsin was rejected as a potential distraction during early voting, according to people briefed on the discussions. And even the Zoom call was kept private until after the polls closed, at the request of Wisconsin Democrats, who feared that reports of her involvement would divert attention from Elon Musk, the overriding target of the Democratic campaign.

If you’re seen as a liability in Wisconsin that Democrats want to hide from the voters, even when you’re not on the ballot… should you really be the Democratic nominee for the second straight cycle?

And CalMatters columnist Dan Walters pointed out that the long Times article about Harris’ future plans barely mentioned any issues facing the state of California.

The article contained not one sentence about the California issues Harris would inherit from Gavin Newsom were she to become governor — such thorny matters as a perpetual housing shortage, homelessness, poverty, an uncertain water supply, educational deficiencies and chronic state budget deficits.

…Governing an extremely complex state such as California is a daunting task, as any past governor could attest, not a consolation prize for losing a presidential contest.

Is Kamala Harris interested in the multitude of looming worsening problems facing the California state government? If she is, she’s hiding it well.