Today a grateful nation celebrates, as it learns it will never have to think about Kamala Harris again for any reason. Yes, Harris has announced that she will not be running for governor of California in 2026. This comes as little surprise to me at this late date — her protracted silence during an era of Democratic angst tipped her hand long in advance — but it frees up other Democrats to announce for the office, who might have felt crowded out by the presence of the former vice president in the race.

Improbably named California elections reporter Elex Michaelson explained Harris’s reasoning on Twitter/X: Apparently Harris was “tempted” to enter the race but decided against it because she “ultimately didn’t want to do the job.“ Normally I’m not one to credit anonymous sources too easily, but that definitely sounds like the Kamala Harris I know.

And I have nothing to say about it except “good riddance,” because I long ago psychologically washed my hands of Harris, after the nightmare of the 2024 campaign. Back in May, when Harris was still playing coy about her future plans, I pulled no punches:

Harris’s cackle-faced blandness and incapacity for spontaneous thought nearly claimed my own sanity last fall, when she was promoted to presidential nominee. In truth, I had far less difficulty reckoning with her progressive politics than with the fact that I could never detect even the slightest hint of a recognizably human, unprogrammed impulse lurking within her mind.

Anyone who wishes to reacquaint themselves with just how deranging Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign was last year is free to poke their heads into the atrocity exhibition; I lived through it once myself, and once was enough. So the only emotion I can muster at this news is an exhausted sort of relief: I will never have to write about her in an electoral context again.

And I am fairly certain of that. Both Michaelson and the New York Post (in its piece) adopt a curious bit of framing, themselves: They speak of Harris’s decision not to run for governor next year as “clearing the way” for a 2028 presidential campaign. Put simply, this is farcical. There are few things I can guarantee from my position here in 2025, but one of them is that Kamala Harris is not going to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028. You know how I know this? Because she already was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024, and she lost. Will she tease an exploratory committee? Put some feelers out there? Perhaps. But I doubt even that. There is no organic demand among the Democrats for Harris and there never was.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Kamala Harris — just go.