Kamala Harris Gets Shunned by Some 2026 Democratic Candidates

Kamala Harris Gets Shunned by Some 2026 Democratic Candidates

For Republicans, appearances and speeches from former Vice President Kamala Harris are the gift that keeps on giving. It reminds everyone of what voters soundly rejected in 2024, when Democrats put Harris on the ballot as their presidential nominee after then-President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid under immense pressure from party leaders.

When it comes to some Democrats, though, those reminders can serve as an albatross for their campaigns, and it’s something they want to steer clear of as they seek to win over a cross-section of voters in their general election campaigns.

Earlier this month, we learned that the Harris team was eager to lend a hand to the Senate campaign of former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola, who is hoping to help Democrats flip the Senate by beating current Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican who is running for reelection.

Kamala Harris endorses Mary Peltola (D) for US Senate in Alaska in e-mail

“We have the power to make a difference in this race too. When we all stand behind Mary, we can give her the boost she needs to overcome their spending and organize across Alaska.” pic.twitter.com/d2XZEcahjV

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) August 13, 2026

But as it turned out, Peltola didn’t want Harris’ help, fearing an endorsement would be a drag on her chance to defeat Sullivan:

For former Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat, to win the Senate race in Alaska this year, she would have to drastically outperform former Vice President Kamala Harris’s showing in the state in the 2024 presidential election.

So after Ms. Harris, who lost Alaska by 14 percentage points, signed a recent fund-raising email from her PAC supporting Ms. Peltola, Republicans saw an opening for an attack — and pounced. Ms. Peltola’s campaign, in turn, quickly said it had not approved the appeal and did not seek the former vice president’s endorsement.

Indeed, after the Sullivan campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), as the media likes to suggest, “pounced and seized” on the endorsement, the Peltola campaign didn’t waste any time making clear they weren’t interested in having Harris’ support:

“Mary isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 — her focus is and always will be Alaska,” the campaign said in a statement that cited the support Ms. Peltola has captured from several Alaska labor groups.

The Peltola campaign said that it did not approve the email from Ms. Harris’s organization, and that it had no knowledge about it before it was sent out.

Peltola wasn’t the only one. Josh Turek, the Democratic Senate nominee in Iowa, and the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Rob Sand, have also indicated that they’d prefer the failed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee stay out of their respective races:

Iowa’s two leading Democratic candidates for office said they don’t want to campaign with their party’s 2024 presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, as they face competitive midterm races this November.

“No thanks,” Democratic governor candidate Rob Sand told Politico. “Let’s move on. We need some new leadership.”

“No,” Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Josh Turek told Iowa reporters Wednesday, Aug. 26, when he was asked if he would want Harris to campaign on his behalf. He did not elaborate.

Q: "Would you want Joe Biden here campaigning for you?"

Iowa Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Rob Sand: "No."

Q: "How about Kamala Harris?"

Iowa Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Rob Sand: "No thanks. Let's move on. We need some new leadership." pic.twitter.com/jvJOq4yfLv

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 26, 2026

And though it might make sense just to write off these snubs as supposedly middle-of-the-road Democrats trying to win in red states, Democrats still hold some sway in Iowa, as Sand pointed out in that Politico interview:

I know that a lot of folks look at the outcome of the election and they see that a Republican won, but we’ve also had some of the country’s closest elections over the last three cycles. Closest congressional race in American history, six votes — that was 2020.

[…]

2022, closest loss for a Democratic incumbent member of Congress, half a point. 2024, closest loss for a Democratic challenger, 700 votes again in southeast Iowa. I won statewide in 2022, and there were two other statewide Democrats that each lost by like one point. So you still got a lot of people in the state of Iowa that are voting for Democrats and comfortable voting for multiple Democrats; it’s just not quite as many as they have in the past.

In other words, the right kind of Democratic endorsement/campaigning at the statewide level from a nationally known figure might do one or both of these guys some good (former President Barack Obama, for instance, has endorsed Turek’s Senate campaign). But for both candidates, an endorsement from Kamala Harris would not be among them.

– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –

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