Kamala Harris is trying to gain momentum for a California governor run — but ‘no one is incredibly pumped,' report says
Kamala Harris is ramping up efforts to connect with long-term supporters as she considers a gubernatorial run in California to replace term-limited Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
However, as Politico reports, many Democratic donors remain hesitant, still reeling from the disappointment of her defeat in the 2024 presidential election by Donald Trump.
Ambivalence about Harris's return to public life has been shared privately among certain donors as she considers her options, which include more than just running for political office, according to the outlet. Aides have also been tasked with exploring a philanthropic venture.
Several major donors in the state told Politico that they fear her reemergence as a candidate would reopen still-fresh wounds from her 2024 defeat.
One California Democrat who contributed six figures to her presidential campaign said a gubernatorial candidacy would only serve as a reminder of how 'traumatizing' the 2024 election was.
'Kamala just reminds you we are in this complete s*** storm. With Biden, we got bamboozled…I think she did the best she could in that situation, but obviously she knew about the cognitive decline too,' they said.
'I've written so many checks because I knew the Trump administration would be horrible, but we're living in a nightmare because of the Democrats. I'm furious at them, truly.'
Others are eager for Harris to begin publicly explaining her case for why she should lead the state, the world's fourth-largest economy, during an extremely difficult period, which is recovering from devastating wildfires, preparing for economic effects from Trump's tariffs, and still dealing with immigration raids and military deployments ordered by the president.
Some donors also have lingering frustration about how the billion-dollar campaign juggernaut to put her in the White House ended in defeat and debt. They want assurances that she would have a clear plan to win the governor's mansion.
Harris allies acknowledge the lingering frustrations from the 2024 campaign but still feel confident that donors would rally behind the former vice president should she enter the California governor's race.
They note that candidates who have already declared their intention to run for the Democratic Party ticket have struggled to raise significant sums, arguing that it is a sign donors are waiting for a decision from Harris.
The former vice president has been consulting with her closest backers in private meetings, notably in the Bay Area, where she began her political life 20 years ago.
The results of these discussions could significantly change California's stagnant gubernatorial race. With widespread name recognition and a robust fundraising infrastructure, Harris would likely emerge as a leading candidate, possibly causing many, though not necessarily all, Democratic opponents to withdraw.
She also benefits from a long-standing fundraising network in the state, an impressive small-donor email list, and a national network of Black women ready to support her in another historic campaign.
While there may be hesitance from the Democrat donor class, conversely, Republicans are eager for Harris to join the race. She could put a fire under the campaign of any GOP candidate looking to capitalize on the perceived failings of the Biden administration, as well as whether the vice president misled Americans about President Joe Biden 's health and mental acuity before he had to exit the 2024 race.
One Democratic fundraiser who was granted anonymity to speak to Politico about sensitive conversations, said that donors 'realize it's just going to bring up the whole pathetic last presidential campaign, which no one wants to hear about again. And then it's the whole 'Did you know Joe Biden?' thing.'
They added: 'She still would probably lead, but honestly, no one is incredibly pumped.'
Questions about any cover-up regarding Biden's health have arisen within Harris's own party, with Antonio Villaraigosa, who is also running for governor, accusing her of being complicit. Supporters believe she must address the issue directly early in any campaign to move on to other topics quickly.
However, Harris should expect to work hard for the nomination and not assume the party will automatically line up behind her on day one, as a donor adviser told Politico.
Given the filing deadlines and the need to build a statewide campaign infrastructure, the 2026 governor's race is the most urgent option facing Harris — she has set her own deadline of late summer to decide.
Running for president again in 2028 is also an option.
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NBC News
21 minutes ago
- NBC News
Big Beautiful Bill AI provision brings together an unexpected group of critics
As Senate Republicans rush to pass their hodgepodge tax and spending package — the Big Beautiful Bill — controversy has arisen around an unusual provision: a 10-year moratorium on states passing their own laws regulating artificial intelligence. Congress has been slow to pass any regulation on AI, a rapidly evolving technology, leaving states to write their own laws. Those state laws largely focus on preventing specific harms, like banning the use deepfake technology to create nonconsensual pornography, to mislead voters about specific issues or candidates or to mimic music artists' voices without permission. Some major companies that lead the U.S. AI industry have argued that a mix of state laws needlessly hamstrings the technology, especially as the U.S. seeks to compete with China. But a wide range of opposition — including some prominent Republican lawmakers, child safety advocates and civil rights groups — say states are a necessary bulwark against a dangerous technology that can cause unknown harms within the next decade. The Trump administration has been clear that it wants to loosen the reins on AI's expansion. During his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ease regulations on the technology and revoke 'existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation. And in February, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at an AI summit in Paris that made clear that the Trump administration wanted to prioritize AI dominance over regulation. But a Pew Research Center study in April found that far more Americans who are not AI experts are more concerned about the risks of AI than the potential benefits. 'Congress has just shown it can't do a lot in this space,' Larry Norden, the vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, a New York University-tied nonprofit that advocates for democratic issues, told NBC News. 'To take the step to say we are not doing anything, and we're going to prevent the states from doing anything is, as far as I know, unprecedented. Especially given the stakes with this technology, it's really dangerous,' Norden said. The provision in the omnibus package was introduced by the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Texas Republican Ted Cruz. Cruz's office deferred comment to the committee, which has issued an explainer saying that, under the proposed rule, states that want a share of a substantial federal investment in AI must 'pause any enforcement of any state restrictions, as specified, related to AI models, AI systems, or automated decision systems for 10 years.' On Friday, the Senate Parliamentarian said that while some provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are subject to a 60-vote threshold to determine whether or not they can remain in the bill, the AI moratorium is not one of them. Senate Republicans said they are aiming to bring the bill to a vote on Saturday. All Senate Democrats are expected to vote against the omnibus bill. But some Republicans have said they oppose the moratorium on states passing AI laws, including Sens. Josh Hawley of Arkansas, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, posted on X earlier this month that, when she signed the House version of the bill, she didn't realize it would keep states from creating their own AI laws. 'Full transparency, I did not know about this section,' Greene wrote. 'We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous.' Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican on the Commerce Committee, has said she opposes the 10-year moratorium. 'We cannot prohibit states across the country from protecting Americans, including the vibrant creative community in Tennessee, from the harms of AI,' she said in a statement provided to NBC News. 'For decades, Congress has proven incapable of passing legislation to govern the virtual space and protect vulnerable individuals from being exploited by Big Tech.' State lawmakers and attorneys general of both parties also oppose the AI provision. An open letter signed by 260 state legislators expressed their 'strong opposition' to the moratorium. 'Over the next decade, AI will raise some of the most important public policy questions of our time, and it is critical that state policymakers maintain the ability to respond,' the letter reads. Similarly, 40 state attorneys general from both parties manifested their opposition to the provision in a letter to Congress. 'The impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI,' they wrote. A Brennan Center analysis found that the moratorium would lead to 149 existing state laws being overturned. 'State regulators are trying to enforce the law to protect their citizens, and they have enacted common sense regulation that's trying to protect the worst kinds of harms that are surfacing up to them from their constituents,' Sarah Meyers West, the co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to shape AI to benefit the public, told NBC News. 'They're saying that we need to wait 10 years before protecting people from AI abuses. These things are live. They're affecting people right now,' she said. AI and tech companies like Google and Microsoft have argued that the moratorium is necessary to keep the industry competitive with China. 'There's growing recognition that the current patchwork approach to regulating AI isn't working and will continue to worsen if we stay on this path,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, wrote on LinkedIn. 'While not someone I'd typically quote, Vladimir Putin has said that whoever prevails will determine the direction of the world going forward.' 'We cannot afford to wake up to a future where 50 different states have enacted 50 conflicting approaches to AI safety and security,' Fred Humphries, Microsoft's corporate vice president of U.S. government affairs, said in an emailed statement The pro-business lobby Chamber of Commerce released a letter, signed by industry groups like the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Meat Institute, in support of the moratorium. 'More than 1,000 AI-related bills have already been introduced at the state and local level this year. Without a federal moratorium, there will be a growing patchwork of state and local laws that will significantly limit AI development and deployment,' they wrote. In opposition, a diverse set of 60 civil rights organizations, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to digital rights groups to the NAACP, have signed their own open letter arguing for states to pass their own AI laws. 'The moratorium could inhibit state enforcement of civil rights laws that already prohibit algorithmic discrimination, impact consumer protection laws by limiting the ability of both consumers and state attorneys general to seek recourse against bad actors, and completely eliminate consumer privacy laws,' the letter reads. The nonprofit National Center on Sexual Exploitation opposed the moratorium on Tuesday, especially highlighting how AI has been used to sexually exploit minors. AI technology is already being used to generate child sex abuse material and to groom and extort minors, said Haley McNamara, the group's senior vice president of strategic initiatives and programs. 'The AI moratorium in the budget bill is a Trojan horse that will end state efforts to rein in sexual exploitation and other harms caused by artificial intelligence. This provision is extremely reckless, and if passed, will lead to further weaponization of AI for sexual exploitation,' McNamara said.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Zohran Mamdani has struck a blow to the Democratic party's passivity
We're told that the Democratic party is at a crossroads, that leaders have lost their identity and their way. We're told that they must spend millions discovering their own 'Joe Rogan', or espouse deregulation, or surrender the fight for the rights of targeted minorities. The Democrats, we're told, are in a moment of soul searching, of trying to find out how they lost young men and the white working class. They're still thinking, half a decade on, of how to undo the supposed damage of the 2020 summer, when protesters opposed to the extrajudicial killings of Black civilians shouted: 'Defund the police.' The subtext of this handwringing, which has been incessant in the media and among party insiders since the November election, is that the party must move, yet again, to the right. It is presumed that they can't attract voters otherwise. The apparent victory (still unofficial because the counting won't technically be complete until July) of a 33-year-old socialist in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary this week suggests otherwise. Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember from Queens, was a little-known leftwing activist whose campaign against the former governor and New York household name Andrew Cuomo was polling in the single digits. But with immense personal charisma and a talent for retail politicking, airtight message discipline centered on making life affordable, and a small army of motivated young volunteers, Mamdani defeated a political dynasty, defied conventional wisdom, and is expected to win the American left its biggest electoral victory since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's primary coup in 2018. In the process, his campaign presented a new vision of the party: one that has energized voters with its authenticity and moral vision even as major donors and the party establishment have balked. The leaders of the Democratic establishment have long believed that the party's left flank was its greatest liability. Mamdani has proven that it can be an asset. Any responsible commentator will tell you that Mamdani's success in the New York mayoral primary will be difficult for other progressive candidates to replicate. The city's public campaign-funds matching program allowed the candidate to spend his time in highly visible public engagement with the people of New York – rather than on fundraising efforts among the rich. The ranked-choice voting system – still relatively new – incentivized him and the crowded other field of candidates to form a united front against Cuomo, and allowed Mamdani to capture the crucial endorsement of his fellow candidate Brad Lander, the beloved New York City comptroller. Mamdani, too, seems to have the kind of personal talent that is rare in any politician: a relaxed and personable demeanor, an uncommon gift for oratory, and a rhetoric of morality and dignity that appears not just plausibly authentic but genuinely inspiring, and is already drawing comparisons to liberal political giants like AOC and the young Barack Obama. Crucially, too, Mamdani is uncommonly disciplined: he avoided attacking the progressive liberals, like Lander and state senator Zellnor Myrie, who were slightly to his right, preferring to unite with them and recruit them into his movement, a gesture of pragmatic generosity that kept the field from turning into a circular firing squad. And he has a gravitas that most of us could not rise to, enduring cynical and often racist smears from Cuomo supporters, who called him antisemitic for his support of human rights for Palestinians with a calm dignity that emphasized his loyalty to all New Yorkers, Jewish or otherwise. All of this – his incentives, his talents – contributed to his victory. None will be easy to recreate in another race. And yet Mamdani's victory is a signal of a subterranean shift happening in the base of the Democratic party – the younger, more motivated, more active voters who the party leadership relies on but does not quite trust. The Democratic party's leaders – like Nancy Pelosi of California, but prominently including Mamdani's fellow New Yorkers Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries – have largely rolled over in the second Trump administration, failing to use either their procedural power or their public platforms to create leverage against the Maga agenda or advance an alternative vision for the country. Their passivity and risk aversion has stood in contrast to the mounting energy of their voters, whose anger at Trump's authoritarian ambitions, racist immigration policies and broader rollback of rights has sparked a growing protest movement. Energized liberal voters find that the Democratic politicians they elected to represent them are passive and complacent, even in the face of what they themselves correctly described, in 2024, as the ascent of a fascist movement. The party's rhetoric is not being matched by its actions, and its actions are not matching its voters' passions. Indeed, the party appears most energetic when it is crushing the ambitions of its charismatic younger members, as when it denied powerful committee positions to AOC and Texas's Jasmine Crockett. Establishment Democrats seem, if anything, as if they want to disappear, to be absolved of their responsibility to advance a political agenda of their own. This might be why they have fled, repeatedly, rightward, away from their own professed principles. This might be why they lined up, during the mayoral primary, behind Cuomo, the disgraced former governor whom many of them had called on to resign just four years ago his candidacy was a promise that their own structures of power and patronage would remain intact, that nothing much would change. Mamdani represented a threat to their own vision of a do-nothing political party. For that, they tried to crush him. You can only antagonize your own base for so long before they begin to notice. In a new poll conducted just days before Mamdani's upset victory, fully 62% of Democratic voters said that their party needs new leadership. Mamdani – youthful, energetic, and actually interested in governance – offers both a rebuke to the Democratic establishment and a vision of the party's renewal. It may be coming whether the Democratic National Committee likes it or not. Fed up with their useless, antagonist leadership and unwilling to give up on the prospect of progressive change, many members of the Democrats' hated base are certain to follow Mamdani's example, taking risks to challenge unpopular or ineffectual incumbents and entrenched local party machines. Since Bill Clinton's victory in 1992, the Democrats have been trying to reinvent themselves as a more conservative party, assuming that their future lay rightward. They were looking in the wrong direction. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
BBC News
42 minutes ago
- BBC News
Canadian businesses seek certainty in US tariff war
Deal or no deal, what Wes Love wants is Toronto-area business, Taurus Craco, imports machinery from overseas and distributes it across North America, mainly to the United President Donald Trump's shifting tariffs on Canadian products have left him, like many independent business owners, unable to plan for the future."What has been creating indecision in the market is people don't know which way this is going to go," Mr Love told the BBC in June. "And in small businesses, indecision is killer." Taurus Craco was hit hard by the tariffs earlier this year when it was forced to shell out nearly C$35,000 ($25,500, £18,700) because a shipment to the US crossed the border a few minutes after one deadline."It is totally punitive. From a small business perspective, that's more than the cost that we spend on hydro and gas for the entire year," he though Trump paused that tariff a few hours later, Taurus Craco still had to pay. Refusing would mean no longer being allowed to transport its products into the US, Mr Love said."It's like dealing with the mob," he is in a tit-for-tat tariff war with its largest trading partner, faciing a series of levies, in particular on metals and auto. Since taking office in January, Trump has announced a series of import taxes on goods from other countries - arguing they will boost American manufacturing and protect jobs. The ensuing uncertainty has hit Canada's economy and intense talks between the two countries hit a snag on Friday. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called Trump's tariffs "unjust", and said while campaigning for the April election that the "old relationship" with the US is "over". Shortly after winning that election, the prime minister visited Washington DC, taking a more conciliatory message to the White House to launch talks on a new trade and security deal. A 16 July deadline since has been set to hash out that deal, and President Trump said at the recent G7 summit that he was optimistic the two countries could "work something out" on on Friday, Trump said he was cutting trade talks over Canada's digital services tax. "We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately," he wrote on social has threatened to impose another round of retaliatory tariffs on the US if the talks aren't successful. Mr Love welcomes any prospect of a deal."Give us a set of rules and leave them alone and let us operate within those rules," he said."It's like sport, right? Everybody goes onto the field and you play to a set of rules, but you don't change the rules in the middle of the game." Trade, a sudden exit, Middle East conflict - five takeaways from G7'A stab in the back' - car workers in Canada hit out at US over tariffsThe reality behind Trump's incredible investment claimsWhat tariffs has Trump announced and why? Gaphel Kongtsa, international policy director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are hopeful an agreement will bring stability. Thus far, they have had to navigate a very fluid landscape, he said, "where seemingly things get increased or decreased or added on without very much clear indication as to why".Canada is hugely reliant on trade with the US, with 75% of its exports heading south, according to Statistics economy has slowed significantly in the first quarter of 2025 as a result of trade war and the ensuing uncertainty - growing only 0.8% between 1 January and 31 March, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).It shrank 0.1% over a month in April. A timeline of the tariffs shows what a whirlwind few months it has 1 February, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most Canadian imports, then suspended them for a month days later. They were re-imposed when that deadline expired, only to be again delayed. Not long after, he granted an exemption on all goods that were compliant with the current North American free trade deal, known as the USMCA. Then in March, the US imposed a global 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminium as well as on imported vehicles. This month, Trump raised the metals tariff to 50%. The manufacturing sector has been in the spotlight when it comes to the tariffs, but the service sector also is affected by the uncertainty, if not by the levies directly. Sam Gupta is the founder and CEO at ElevatIQ, a technology and management consultancy that operates out of Buffalo, New York, and in Gupta said most people don't think about the service sector during a period of uncertainty, calling it the "unloved stepchild" of the economy."The attention goes to all the manufacturing companies and the companies that are directly impacted by the supply chain," he said. Still, services - which encompass everything from finance to tourism - make up a huge proportion of Canada's economy, accounting for the vast majority of its exporters have not been hit as hard as manufacturing, but their outlook and confidence in the market is at the lowest level in years, according to data from the Canadian Chamber of while Ottawa has implemented several measures to provide relief to companies hit by the tariffs - including from funds raised by counter tariffs - the service sector has not received any compensation."We are not even in the conversation," Mr Gupta said. "We don't exist."He said his business is not financially struggling at the moment, but noted that inquiries for his firm's services were "down by 50%". "As far as our understanding goes, not a lot of businesses are thinking about these longterm investments right now. It just, they just are not in the mindset," he said."The biggest fear that we all have right now is, I don't know how long this is going to go. If it is going to be six months, a year, 18 months, we can still survive. But let's say this goes on for like two years, three years then oh, my goodness, it will be, really, really hard."This has been the toughest period for the industry in his 20-year career, as the sector faces a combination of challenges, he said. Mr Gupta recalled how easy it was for him to get a well-paying job early in his career. "Even when I was graduating, we were getting paid like crazy. And we were so arrogant that we would not even pick up calls from recruiters," he said."But now with AI, with tariffs, the economy, everything, everybody that I know is struggling," he said. Statistics Canada reports that 56% of all businesses that export to the US have taken measures to mitigate the impact of than 30% have delayed major investments and expenditures, while 25% sought alternative customers outside the Bank of Canada said on Wednesday that exports to the US dropped by more than 15% in April. Steel and aluminium exports were down by 25% and 11%, and the export of vehicles had fallen by 25%.But despite everything, Mr Love remains said businesses can navigate the challenges as long as the US does not keep changing its trade policy."We're entrepreneurs. We are full of piss and vinegar, as they would say," he said."And so we are doing everything that we possibly can to keep fighting. And I think we will be successful; we just need to know what the ground rules are."
