Exclusive: Kamala Harris to appear at Democratic events through the South in April
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
(CNN) — As speculation continues about what Kamala Harris will do next, she has at least the first part of an answer: a swing through four Southern state Democratic Party events in April.
And conversations about similar stops through the summer and fall are already underway, a person familiar with her plans told CNN.
But first, she’ll appear at fundraisers for the North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia state parties the week of April 13, then follow that with a keynote address at the Arkansas Democrats’ annual Fisher Shackelford Dinner in Little Rock on April 25. That’s in addition to her appearance last Friday at the National Women’s Law Center annual gala in Washington and another scheduled speech at the end of April.
Invitations to many of these events will start going out in the coming days and come as even other prospective 2028 Democratic candidates are beginning to ask around for intel on her plans. Though she has not made any decision on a repeat run, her geographic choices for this swing are reminiscent of what her 2020 campaign team used to call its “SEC strategy,” hoping to win lots of delegates among the heavily Black primary electorates to counter what they expected would be weaker showings in other early voting states.
In the end, she dropped out over a month before the first contest that year.
The former vice president and 2024 replacement Democratic nominee is coming to the end of a six-month national tour to promote her memoir of the campaign, which has put her in front of dozens of friendly audiences. As the book was published last September — shortly after Harris passed on entering the California governor’s race — she said she wanted to take a break from being in government, while hoping to boost Democrats in this year’s midterms.
Harris has already recorded ads for the Democratic National Committee and for Virginia Democrats’ ballot proposition, scheduled for April 21. And though she endorsed Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the final days of the Texas Senate Democratic race, she has been in touch with the winner of that primary, James Talarico, as well as other recent primary winners Juliana Stratton in Illinois and Scott Colom in Mississippi.
Harris also endorsed Helena Moreno and Zohran Mamdani in last year’s New Orleans and New York mayoral races, and former aide Dan Koh in his primary for Congress in Massachusetts.
In late February, appearing in Cleveland at a fundraiser for Rep. Emilia Sykes, the congresswoman asked, “What have you been doing lately?”
“Listening,” Harris replied.
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