Kamala Harris After a whirlwind 107-day campaign, what’s next for the vice-president?

Whatever happened to Kamala Harris? For 107 days she was everywhere, filling TV screens and campaign rallies in her whirlwind bid for the White House. Then, with election defeat by Donald Trump, it all ended as abruptly as it began. The rest is silence.

“The vice-president has taken time off to go spend time with her family,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday, acknowledging that Harris is holidaying in Hawaii with husband Doug Emhoff. “She has worked very hard for the last four years, and her taking a couple of days to be with her family, good for her.”

With Trump’s special brand of chaos already dominating the Washington agenda, Harris’s vice-presidency is clearly in a winding down. When she formally leaves office on 20 January, she will face her first spell as a private citizen since she was elected San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003.

Speculation has already begun as to what might come next. While Harris, 60, has not announced any specific plans, supporters suggest that options include a move into the private sector, a return to California politics – or another presidential run in 2028.

Bakari Sellers, a close ally of Harris and former congressman from South Carolina, said: “She can do anything she wants to do. She’s more than capable. She’s given this country more than enough. She can go to the private sector and make money. She can go to a law school and teach.

“She can be governor of California and pretty much clear the field. She can run for president again. Or she can just say to hell with it and go and spend time with Dougie. That decision hasn’t been made yet but her options are plentiful.”

The last incumbent vice-president to lose an election was Al Gore in 2000. He went on to make an Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and win the Nobel peace prize for his efforts to combat the climate crisis.

Election losers since then have included John Kerry, later a secretary of state, and John McCain and Mitt Romney, both of whom served in the Senate. Hillary Clinton wrote a book about her 2016 defeat entitled What Happened, while the 2020 election loser, Trump, bounced back to regain the White House earlier this month.

Harris might be tempted by a spell in the private sector. Law firms and lobbying groups would welcome her legal background and political connections. Alternatively she could contribute to the policy debate by joining a thinktank or launching her own advocacy organisation.

She could also write a book offering her perspective on her time in Joe Biden’s White House, including its internal tensions, and her hastily improvised campaign against Trump. Its level of candour would probably depend on whether she is planning a return to the political arena.

California governor Gavin Newsom is term-limited in 2026, raising the prospect of Harris seeking to make more history by becoming the state’s first female governor. As a former California senator and attorney general, she enjoys high name recognition in the state and would have no problem attracting donors.

Harris would be following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, who lost the 1960 presidential election and ran for California governor two years later. But he lost that race too. He told reporters: “You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last news conference.” He roared back to win the presidency in 1968.