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There are only two lanes to the Democratic presidential nomination two years from now, and one of them is already blocked -- by Kamala Harris.
Get ready for the Kamala comeback, followed, in all likelihood, by a replay of her crushing defeat by the Republican nominee.
Believe it or not, the ex-VP occupies what counts as the "center lane" within the party, and for most of the last three decades that's the one that's led to the nomination.
Republicans used to be the party of orderly succession, even if the candidate whose turn had come looked like a certain loser: think Bob Dole in '96.
But recently, it's been Democrats who've tended to pick a party elder as their nominee:
Al Gore, as a sitting VP, might not have been remarkable in 2000, but in '04 it was John Kerry, in '16 Hillary Clinton and in 2020 Joe Biden -- with only Barack Obama butting ahead of the line in 2008.
Democrats like a known quantity, a reliable liberal who isn't too overtly radical; the radicalism can wait until after Election Day.
So they're leaning to running Harris again, even if donors aren't happy about it: They blew nearly $2 billion on her campaign and aligned PAC's in 2024, only for Harris to lose every battleground state to Trump.
It won't be donors who decide the party's 2028 nominee, though, and ordinary Democrats actually find Harris reassuring.
She's a familiar face, after all, commanding practically universal name recognition.
Harris checks the identity-politics boxes that may be as important as winning to Democratic primary voters: Their ticket must have a woman, and it can't be all white.
And after being vetted as a VP and undergoing the trial-by-fire of the '24 campaign, Harris isn't likely to surprise voters with any extremist tattoos or sexual-assault allegations -- things that can't be taken for granted among Democrats nowadays.
Then there's the revenge motive: What better way to repudiate the Trump era and reverse the '24 humiliation than by making the woman he defeated president?
Democratic primary voters are still smarting from Hillary Clinton's drubbing in 2016: by 2028, the election of America's first female president will have been postponed 12 long years, and feminists in the party aren't willing to wait any longer.
These are the reasons Harris tops almost all polls of 2028 Democratic hopefuls, with an 11.6-point lead in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate as of mid-July.
"She comes in with 99 percent name ID and everyone else is going to have to raise money and buy it," a former Harris aide tells New York's David Freedlander.
The donors might prefer just about anyone else, yet they'd have to pour an enormous amount of cash into another candidate just to make him or her recognizable.
This has led one longtime Democratic strategist with donors' ears to welcome the inevitable: "I hope she runs," Alex Hoffman told New York, "Because then she will lose and we will never have to hear from her again. She will never win an election at a national scale. Never."
But if Harris is hopeless, why does she seem inevitable?
She has seniority no one else can match, but what about the other lane that leads to the nomination?
That's the left lane -- thefar left lane.
The one Bernie Sanders occupied in 2020 and 2016, and that a candidate like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might fill in 2028.
Young Dems keep moving leftward, with the Democratic Socialists of America making deeper inroads into the party.
Harris is not nearly left-wing enough for them -- but then, anyone who is would be upsetting to the old guard.
It's not that the old-timers aren't also well to the left on economics, but they don't want to be labeled "socialists"-- while the insurgent left is proud of the brand.
The party's mainstream wants to have it both ways on the Israel-Palestine conflict -- while the young left, increasingly, is explicit about its anti-Zionism.
There are still enough baby boomers and suburbanites in the Democratic Party to make the left lane an unlikely road to the nomination. For now.
Harris can expect a challenge from the left, but the party is still probably one more presidential cycle away from nominating someone who openly represents where Democrats are headed.
In fact, a Harris defeat in 2028 would be the perfect prelude to the socialist and anti-Zionist left's takeover, discrediting the old guard for forfeiting the election to Donald Trump's successor.
Insider Democrats know Kamala Harris is a terrible candidate, but the party they built can't tell her no -- even if this is the last nomination they get to make before DSA takes over.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print