Kamala Harris’s new memoir, 107 Days, has landed on bookstore shelves with a thud that’s reverberating across the American political landscape. Released just last week, the book offers a raw, sometimes confounding, behind-the-scenes look at her truncated 2024 presidential campaign—a campaign that ended with Donald Trump’s reelection and left many Democrats questioning the party’s direction. But is 107 Days a confession, a warning, or just another attempt at myth-making by a politician coming to terms with a historic defeat?
Structured as a daily diary, Harris’s memoir walks readers through the emotional and strategic highs and lows of her campaign. According to Slate, the book is peppered with intimate details, like Harris batch-freezing home-cooked meals for her husband, Doug Emhoff, so he’d have something to eat while she juggled the demands of the vice presidency. It’s a scene that’s both oddly domestic and deeply revealing, showing the personal sacrifices behind the public persona.
The book’s format—one entry for each day of her campaign—means the narrative is relentlessly forward-moving, with little room for the kind of introspection or hindsight that readers might crave after such a consequential loss. As Slate points out, “A more interesting book starts at her loss, instead of leading us through the heady campaign that, frankly, doesn’t matter anymore.” Instead, much of the story is devoted to the minutiae of debate prep, advertising decisions, and the daily grind of a campaign that, in the end, failed to galvanize the electorate.
One of the most talked-about revelations in 107 Days is Harris’s admission that Pete Buttigieg was her first choice for running mate. As reported by Modern Newsstand LLC, Harris wrote, “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She added, “And I think Pete also knew that – to our mutual sadness.” Ultimately, Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, citing his Midwestern profile and crossover appeal as a safer bet to withstand attacks from Trump’s camp.
Harris’s remarks about Buttigieg’s sexuality and the perceived risk it posed in a national race drew sharp criticism. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow voiced her discomfort with the implication that Buttigieg’s identity made him less electable, while Buttigieg himself told Politico, “I was surprised when I read that. Americans are more open-minded than she gives them credit for.” The internet, however, was divided—some defended Harris for her realism, while others echoed Buttigieg’s hopeful outlook.
The book also details Harris’s failed attempt to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in the lead-up to Election Day. Harris claims she was blindsided when Rogan’s team booked Trump on the very date she had proposed, a move that many saw as a missed opportunity to reach the young male demographic her campaign desperately needed. As BuzzFeed News noted, the fact that a former vice president is “beefing with a podcast host” speaks volumes about the shifting dynamics of political communication in America.
Perhaps most revealing are Harris’s accounts of her fraught relationships within the Democratic Party. She expresses frustration with prominent Democrats like Gavin Newsom, the Obamas, and Nancy Pelosi for their delayed endorsements after Biden dropped out of the race. Pelosi in particular comes in for criticism—she wanted a primary to replace Biden, a stance that Harris found exasperating. Online, reactions were mixed; some praised Pelosi’s insistence on democratic process, while others saw it as backstabbing or unnecessary.
Harris doesn’t shy away from criticizing Joe Biden, either. She calls his decision to run for reelection in 2024 “reckless,” arguing that such a consequential choice shouldn’t have been left to “an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition.” She also accuses Biden’s staff of fueling negative coverage against her, painting a picture of a campaign marred by internal divisions and missed opportunities.
Yet, for all the finger-pointing, some readers and commentators have noted a lack of genuine self-reflection in Harris’s memoir. As one Reddit user put it, “I didn’t see a shred of actual self-reflection in this. She’s blaming Biden and his team, and her only self-criticism is that she shouldn’t have trusted them?” Others, however, found her candor refreshing, even if it came too late to change the outcome.
The memoir doesn’t entirely shy away from policy controversies, either. Harris discusses her ambivalence toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tries to strike a balance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “For any enduring peace, we have to let go of extreme rhetoric on both sides,” she writes. “I wanted to acknowledge the complexity, nuance, and history of the region, but it seemed very few people had the appetite for that or the willingness to hold two tragic narratives in their mind at the same time, to grieve for human suffering both Israeli and Palestinian.” Critics, however, argue that her reluctance to take a firmer stand may have cost her support among Arab American voters and progressives.
Personal tensions also surface in the book, particularly with Dr. Jill Biden. Harris recounts her husband Doug Emhoff’s frustration after Dr. Biden questioned their loyalty: “They hide you away for four years, give you impossible, shit jobs, don’t correct the record when those tasks are mischaracterized, never fight back when you’re attacked, never praise your accomplishments. And still, they have to ask if we’re loyal?” It’s a rare glimpse into the emotional toll of life at the highest levels of American politics.
In the end, 107 Days reads as both a chronicle of a failed campaign and a meditation on the limits of the American political system. Harris admits she’s not seeking reelection and wants to engage with people outside the transactional world of electoral politics. “I don’t want to go back in the system. I think it’s broken,” she told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show last month. But as critics have pointed out, Harris’s realization comes only after her own ambitions were thwarted—a familiar pattern for politicians who find themselves on the losing side of history.
For Democrats searching for answers in the aftermath of a bruising defeat, 107 Days offers more questions than solutions. The book’s daily diary format captures the chaos and anxiety of a campaign in crisis, but leaves readers wondering what, if anything, Harris has learned from her experience. As the party looks to the future, the lessons of Harris’s campaign—and her memoir—may prove instructive, if only as a cautionary tale.
