Kamala Harris will crisscross New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Nevada and Georgia from Oct. 21 to Oct. 30, on a closing-stretch schedule that happens to pass through early states on Democrats' 2028 calendar. The former vice president says she's focused on November. Yet she admits what everyone watching can see. “I'm thinking about it,” said Harris, who lost the 2024 general election to Donald Trump two years ago.
She isn't alone. The midterms officially center on electing 36 governors and 470 members of Congress. But early White House hopefuls no longer have to play coy, and a crowded Democratic field is using this fall to audition.
The Pre-Campaign Campaign
Harris's itinerary looks like a primary-season map. She opens Oct. 21 in Nevada, home to the second 2028 nominating contest, with attorney general Aaron Ford, who'd be the state's first Black governor. She'll meet Culinary Workers Union members. On Oct. 22, she's in Mississippi with Scott Colom, who faces Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Next comes New Hampshire on Oct. 24, where she'll join Senate nominee Chris Pappas, third in Democrats' 2028 order, for a discussion on reproductive care and abortion rights. Wisconsin's David Crowley gets her on Oct. 26. Then a three-day Georgia swing with Sen. Jon Ossoff starts Oct. 28 and ends with a keynote at the Fulton County Democratic Party gala on Oct. 30.
Her virtual Florida event stands out. Harris will headline an organizing session with Senate nominee Angie Nixon, a state lawmaker who identifies as a democratic socialist and has support from left-flank activists who criticized Harris as too moderate in 2024. She's also campaigned in Michigan for Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, another notable progressive.
The rest of the field isn't waiting around. Pete Buttigieg acknowledged he's “more inclined than not” to run. Since leaving the transportation department, he's visited 37 states in two years. Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Raphael Warnock, Andy Beshear, Rahm Emanuel and Ro Khanna have all put South Carolina on their fall itineraries. Mark Kelly has visited more than 15 states during the midterms.
Money Flows, and So Does the Infighting
Cash is moving, too. Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, has sent tens of millions of dollars outside Illinois this cycle to party committees and Senate races for Roy Cooper in North Carolina and Ossoff in Georgia. When Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa was gaining on Gov. Greg Abbott with just $4 million in the bank, the Democratic Governors Association, chaired by Beshear, and Pritzker each sent $1 million.
Then there's the squabbling. Newsom has criticized fellow Democrats for not doing more to confront Republicans. Pritzker accused “do-nothing Democrats” of blaming losses on “our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants, instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.”
Emanuel offers the sharpest counter. “We've lost the plot because the party got un-anchored,” he told a Fox News podcast, arguing that Democrats fixated on culture wars instead of middle-class worries about the economy and education. “You are worried about bathroom access and locker room access,” he said. “Why don't you focus on classroom excellence?” He calls himself a “raging moderate” and blasts the party's “leftward lurch.” His proposals include restricting children's access to social media and banning federal workers from betting on the predictions market.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sees things differently. “We have written a check on the left, saying if you champion these policies that have popular support, we can win,” she said at a New York fundraiser leaked to ABC. “And now it is time to cash in.” Beshear makes the governor's case, citing records of solving problems and reaching across partisan lines. “I believe that our candidate should be a Democratic governor,” he told USA TODAY.
Attacks on Trump
Newsom has taken an early lead in attacking the president. He called Trump “the gravest threat to American democracy” and warned, “Wake up: You will lose your country.” After Trump's Oct. 5 Nebraska rally remarks about the Iran war, the president said, “They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The White House said Trump meant the cities were vulnerable to attack, not that he was inviting one. Newsom responded, “He is deranged and dangerous,” and directed California's State Threat Assessment Center to monitor whether foreign actors might interpret the remarks as an invitation.
On the Republican side, Vice President JD Vance is the presumptive 2028 nominee, though challengers will likely emerge. Vance told NBC it's “really obvious to me that, at this very moment, [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz is running for president.”
Why This Matters:
Harris leads early polls, but Democrats still lack a dominant frontrunner, and the party's direction is up for grabs. The split is real. Emanuel wants a return to kitchen-table economics and school quality; Ocasio-Cortez wants to cash in on a bet that progressive policies win. The side that prevails will shape voters' choices on taxes, spending and government's role in 2028. Meanwhile, nominees such as Nixon and El-Sayed show the left flank shaping this cycle's ballots now, with Harris campaigning alongside them. Big-dollar donors like Pritzker are also steering where party resources go. Swing-state voters should expect early primary jockeying to color the final weeks before November, as candidates position themselves for 2028 as well as this year's races.