Moderate Democrats looking past Kamala Harris for 2028, suggesting party 'start over'
Some moderate Democrats are looking away from former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party's 2024 nominee, as they look toward 2028, according to a column published Monday.
Politico columnist Jonathan Martin spoke to multiple moderate Democrats at a Third Way conference who seemed to indicate they didn't see the failed 2024 nominee as their next one.
"We tried it, it didn’t work, next person up," Ed Sutton, a South Carolina state senator, told Martin.
Another South Carolina state senator, Brad Hutto, said, "I think we’re going to be reluctant to pick somebody who didn’t win last time."
Harris has been touring the country promoting her book, "107 Days," a memoir about her historically short presidential campaign.
She recently spoke out against President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, saying, "It was full of lies, and you know when he wasn't lying, it reminded me of our kids going to show and tell at school."
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb told the columnist, "My preference would be somebody who can f---ing win."
However, he told the columnist, "Let the voters decide," when asked whether he thought Harris could win.
"The race is wide open," Steve Benjamin, the first Black mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and a former aide to President Joe Biden, said when asked by Martin about 2028.
"We’re in a culture now where it’s whiplash, so if someone else can capture imagination, hearts and souls, they have a shot," Benjamin added.
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Third Way's president and co-founder, Jon Cowan, delivered a speech at the conference that warned against reverting to "Bidenism."
He told Martin that he didn't see Harris running in 2028 and didn't mention the former vice president in his remarks.
"If I thought there was an 80% chance she was going to run, I would’ve said her name," Cowan said. "I just don’t see it right now."
Cowan also revealed his "nightmare scenario" to Martin.
Harris "runs, she takes a bunch of the Black vote away from the would-be moderate nominee, and somebody like AOC consolidates her [left-wing] vote and Harris screws us," he said.
"Very bluntly, if she does run, the last primary [in 2020] was a disaster," Cowan added.
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Lisa Owens Izzo, an activist who supported Biden's campaign in 2020, told Martin, "I don’t know if the country is ready for a female president, and she’s so qualified."
"Start over, start over — just my opinion," she said.
Harris said in December that she hasn't decided whether she'll run in 2028.
Harris' office did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.