Kamala Harris may be thinking about another run for president. Democratic voters appear to be thinking about almost anyone else.
Two recent surveys put former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at the front of the potential 2028 Democratic field. The uglier numbers for Harris came from Michigan, where she managed just 5.1 percent support, a collapse from the 33 percent she held in national polling as recently as last October.
A hypothetical Democratic primary poll conducted by The Public Sentiment Institute between July 25 and July 29 among 762 likely Michigan voters, reached by text message and matched against the state’s voter file with a four-point margin of error, found Buttigieg leading with 24.2 percent. Undecided voters finished second at 21.7 percent. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) followed with 13.9 percent, Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) received 10.7 percent, and Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom of California took 10 percent. Harris was far behind them all at 5.1 percent.
More than four times as many voters were undecided as supported Harris.
She was also much closer to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at 3.8 percent and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro at 3.6 percent than she was to Newsom. One small consolation for the former vice president: She still finished ahead of Hunter Biden, who somehow collected 1.9 percent.
TPSI put it plainly:
“Undecided finishes second. More than a fifth of this electorate has no 2028 preference at all, and we left every one of them there. A contest more than two years out is exactly where an undecided answer is a result rather than a gap to be filled.”
None of that indecision is breaking toward Harris. She told Rev. Al Sharpton in April she was considering another bid, “I might. I am thinking about it,” and has appeared in early-voting states including Michigan and South Carolina. The polls so far suggest Democratic voters are not thinking about it nearly as hard.
The national numbers don’t offer much refuge either. An Emerson College survey conducted July 19 and 20 placed Buttigieg first with 19 percent, Newsom at 17 percent, and Ossoff and Ocasio-Cortez tied at 13 percent. Harris finished at 8 percent, behind all four, while 13 percent remained undecided.
That erosion has been steady. A separate national poll released in June still had Harris leading the field at 27 percent, but that was already down sharply from 33 percent in October and 31 percent in March.
The 2028 election remains more than two years away, and the large undecided vote in Michigan shows how unsettled the field remains. Harris can keep contemplating another campaign. So far, Democratic voters seem considerably less enthusiastic about reliving 2024.
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