An ‘institute for policy and ideas’

Former Vice President and failed 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris is thinking about creating an “institute for policy and ideas” for her next act, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Harris has mostly stayed out of the public eye in the months since she left office as rumors swirl that she may be eyeing another run for the White House or to become the governor of California. Now, one of her top advisors is reaching out to universities to discuss the possibility of setting up a think tank, according to the NYT.

Brian Nelson — a longtime aide to Harris — has reached out to universities including Stanford and Howard to explore the prospect of hosting Harris’ potential “institute for policy and ideas,” according to the NYT. Some of her other allies have cautioned her, however, that fundraising for the prospective center could open her to attack in future political races depending on who donors may be.

Harris was criticized throughout the 2024 campaign for running away from a host of left-wing policy positions she enthusiastically endorsed as a presidential candidate in the 2020 election cycle, as well as for providing few specifics about what her agenda would look like if she won the 2024 race. Moreover, she has also been mocked consistently for “word salad” answers to basic questions and her tendency to awkwardly fall back on non sequiturs and peculiar anecdotes while speaking publicly.

The former vice president’s loss to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election still weighs on Harris’ mind, according to the NYT. Harris lost the popular vote and the Electoral College as previously-reliable Democrat voting blocs swung toward Trump, though many Democrats have placed blame for the 2024 loss at the feet of former President Joe Biden and his circle for mistakenly believing Biden was up to the task of securing re-election.

To that end, many people in Harris’ inner circle believe that she would have been able to defeat Trump if she had more than 107 days to campaign after Biden quit the race following his disastrous showing in the late June 2024 debate against Trump, according to the NYT. Harris’ running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is thought to have possible presidential ambitions of his own, embarking on a national town hall tour and staying in the national eye in the months since Election Day.

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