Former Vice President Kamala Harris took to her new book, "107 Days," to answer a question: What if she delivered a winning campaign?
The 2024 election was one for the history books — Harris only had 107 days to run her presidential bid. The book displayed her opinions on the loss of the presidency and her experiences during campaigning. The book was riddled with different excuses and hindsights.
While it was a great story because it explained what happened behind the scenes and brought back memories of the chaos during her campaign, it made me question if she was truly a reliable narrator or if she was trying to cover her own tracks.
In the book, Harris took the opportunity to make a case against any mishaps and tribulations she encountered over the span of her campaign — a should've, would've, could've of her efforts in the 2024 election.
Along with sounding out her fallout, Harris also addressed some of the dangers of the Trump administration, rebutting it with how things would have been under her command.
She reflected on a moment during the campaign where she should have done things differently, a theme that I could tell was hanging in her mind while writing the book.
Responding to a question at her appearance on MSNBC's talk show, "The View", if she would do anything different than Biden as president, she said "there is not a thing that comes to mind."
One of, if not the biggest, mistakes Harris made during her presidential campaign was not separating herself enough from Biden.
"Over the course of the 107 days, I became increasingly aware that people wanted to know there was a separation and that it was a big issue for them," Harris wrote. "I just didn't realize how big."
Afraid to sound like she was insulting Biden and his current work as president, Harris refused to criticize him.
She wrote that she never believed in pushing someone else down to elevate herself.
"To do so would have been to embrace the cruelty of my opponent," Harris wrote. "In the moment, I didn't see a way to answer the question without doing that."
While she kept her silence on her criticism of Biden throughout the presidential race, Harris did not hold back in her book.
The former vice president referenced multiple times when her boss had made her job as vice president and efforts to campaign more difficult.
Biden and the White House had shut her out if she were doing too well. In the book, Harris wrote that his team believed "if she's shining, he's dimmed."
While reading, I wondered if she was just trying to cover herself by finding an excuse through him. Again, it is not apparent if her portrayal was reliable.
"It would serve as a testament to his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that if something happened, the country was in good hands," she wrote. "My success was important for him. His team didn't get it."
Harris laid out a few of the ideas she would have enacted if she had won against Trump.
A lot of what she said would have carried through, aimed to support Gen Z and transform them into what she called "a new Greatest Generation."
A notable addition to her presidential cabinet would have been a secretary of culture "to uplift the immense creative talent of this country."
Toward the end of the book, Harris wrote to readers "I told you so." She listed out many of the agenda items Trump has already implemented from Project 2025 in comparison with his false promise to fix the economy and end all foreign wars on his first day in office.
"Instead, he has acted as enabler to the aggressor and shamefully attacked a brave leader defending democracy," she wrote. "I predicted all that. I warned of it."
While she did not announce any upcoming campaigns, Harris conveyed her disappointment for the future of the U.S. — a future that worries me and others my age.
It was interesting picking her brain through the book and understanding the inside chaos that enveloped the country and the politics I'm so passionate about. As a politics consumer and enjoyer, "107 Days" was a great way to dive into a presidential candidate's thought process.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this review are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Edited by Senna James, George Headley, Sophia Braccio and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporters at elbradfo@asu.edu and follow @emmalbradford__ on X.
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Emma Bradford is a junior studying journalism and mass communication and political science with a minor in business. She has previously worked at the Cronkite News Washington, D.C. bureau as a Politics and Money Reporter. Bradford is in her fourth semester with The State Press and on the politics desk.
