Kamala Harris spent six years representing California in the United States Senate. She grew up there. She built her political career there. She launched her national profile there. And according to a new UC Berkeley/Politico poll of California Democrats, she is losing the 2028 presidential primary in her own home state by 14 points.
Gavin Newsom leads Harris 28 percent to 14 percent among California Democrats when asked about their 2028 presidential preference. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comes in at 12 percent. Pete Buttigieg at 11 percent. The woman who was the Democratic nominee for president just four months ago is running fourth in the state that was supposed to be her floor — the one place she could count on.
This is not a national poll where Harris can blame unfamiliarity or geography. This is California. These are the voters who know her best, have watched her longest, and sent her to Washington. And they are choosing the governor of their own state over her by double digits.
The humiliation has a specific shape. In a previous version of the same survey, Harris had 19 percent in California and Newsom had 25 percent. Since then, she has lost five points in her home state while Newsom has gained three. The trajectory is not a blip. It is a direction.
Among the party’s own “policy influencers” — the donors, activists, and organizers who shape Democratic primary outcomes — Harris receives 2 percent. Newsom receives 17 percent. The grassroots activists who were supposed to be her base have effectively moved on.
Here is where the story gets bigger than Kamala Harris specifically.
Gavin Newsom is winning this poll. He is the frontrunner in California, the biggest Democratic state in the country, and he leads the national field in several surveys. By the conventional logic of Democratic politics, he should be the story of encouragement — the next man up, the polished communicator, the two-term governor of the nation’s most populous state.
Except 59 percent of California Democrats say they are not excited about Gavin Newsom.
That same poll that shows him beating Harris by 14 points also shows that a clear majority of his own party’s voters in his own state are unenthusiastic about him as a presidential candidate. Fifty-nine percent not excited about Newsom. Fifty-nine percent not excited about Harris. The two most famous Democrats in the most Democratic state in America cannot generate majority enthusiasm among Democratic voters — after losing the White House, losing the Senate, and watching their party’s congressional leadership age out of relevance in real time.
The 2028 Democratic primary is shaping up to be a race between a candidate her own state doesn’t want and a candidate her own party isn’t excited about. Behind them sits AOC at 12 percent and Pete Buttigieg at 11 percent — neither of whom has demonstrated the ability to win statewide in a competitive environment.
Nationally, Harris still leads Democratic primary polling at around 31 percent — which sounds more impressive until you remember that 31 percent of your own party supporting you is not a foundation, it is a ceiling. She lost to Donald Trump by a margin that ended the political career of everyone who championed her nomination. The voters who know her best just ranked her fourth.
California told the country something in November. California is now telling its own party something in March. At some point, the Democratic Party is going to have to reckon with the fact that the answer to “who do we have for 2028” keeps coming back the same way: not her, and nobody else who excites us either.
