Perhaps we haven’t seen the last of Kamala Harris just yet.

Allow me to share a few tender pre-Thankgiving victuals with you, for I am fascinated at how quickly politicians get off the mat after the conclusion of one election and immediately armor up for the next cycle. Yesterday night, I briefly celebrated the potential return of Kamala Harris to electoral politics, either in 2028 as a presidential candidate once again or in 2026 as a candidate for California governor. And while we all know that the idea of Harris as a presidential candidate again is a nonstarter — Harris wasn’t just a loser, she was an incompetent and uninspiring loser — I received intelligent feedback from our readers about the plausibility of her making a serious run for the governor’s mansion in Sacramento. By the readers’ reckoning — particularly our California-based readers — it’s altogether too easy to see someone as vapid as Harris succeeding in a statewide run: either clearing or swamping the Democratic field and thus guaranteeing a November race against a Steve Garvey–like punching bag who would lose by ten points on a good night. (Never forget, folks, it’s California: God’s not coming to bail you out of this one.)

So I tip my cap and grant a well-taken point: If Harris runs for governor, she may well win, and, at that point, I assume that supervolcano Hollywood has forever been warning us about will finally erupt and the coast will be toast. (The last part may not happen literally, but contemplate for a moment the idea of Kamala Harris as governor and you’ll realize you certainly can’t rule it out metaphorically.) Her re-emergence from a presidential-level loss to slog around in lower-level electoral politics would be unlikely, but it remains within the realm of plausibility.

What’s interesting is that she is not alone in beginning, so soon after the election — before 2025, before even Thanksgiving 2024 — to make public noises positioning herself for an election nearly two years away. And while Harris’s may be a face-saving ruse, others are far more serious about their intentions.

For example, you don’t spend $147,000 in ad placements in the State of Tennessee for the 2024 Christmas season unless you are trying to raise your positive name ID in the State of Tennessee, so given that Republican senator Marsha Blackburn has done just that, it’s safe to say that she intends to run for governor of the state. As a staunch conservative with no history of getting on the bad side of Team MAGA and coming off a 64–34 percent reelection romp against a no-name candidate, she will be a formidable primary candidate and — unless absolute disaster befalls the nation by that time — a guaranteed statewide winner despite typical midterm blues for the party holding the White House.

Even more fascinating is the potential move of Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres, of New York’s 16th district. Torres is an intriguing character, an openly gay progressive Afro-Latino whose mere identity simultaneously checks so many classically “woke” boxes that he has been the recipient of Strange New Respect from many on the center and the right for positioning himself far away from that woke nonsense. Despite representing a South Bronx district adjacent to those of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the late, unlamented Jamaal Bowman, Torres in 2020 pointedly declined to join the newly formed “Squad,” nor did he hide his reasoning: He believed their platform to be little better than thinly veiled antisemitism. (This was long before the recent war, so score one for Torres on that front.)

Recently, he has been making loud noises about how misgoverned the State and City of New York are and hinting at how that might require new leadership in Albany — his leadership, of course. That is interesting because the current governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, is (1) also a Democrat, who has (2) already committed to running for reelection per her announcement at a press conference back in July, and (3) presently is only slightly more popular than polio among New York voters, many of whom are currently thrilling to the prospect of “congestion pricing” being introduced for all city commuters in January. I confess that I am unfamiliar with the deeper texture of New York state politics, but it seems for all the world to me that the single most entertaining 2026 primary is already taking shape. And, if it does, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving Democrat.