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Topics: Kamala Harris, Politics, US News, Donald Trump
Kamala Harris was apparently left 'completely shocked' after losing to Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential race last November.
The former vice president was confirmed as the Democratic presidential nominee just a few months before the election after then-president Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Trump ultimately beat Harris to the keys for the White House, and the Democrat politician has lingered in the shadows ever since.
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However, the former vice president spoke at the Leading Women Defined Summit in California this week (April 3), where she spoke on the importance of being courageous despite this fear and also warned of further issues along the road under Trump’s administration.
Harris said: “When one person, when a few stand with the courage, that is the courage exhibited by the leaders in this room every day.
"To have the courage to say I feel fear, the courage to say what is happening is wrong, the courage to say that there is a way that we must chart to get through this.
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"Understanding our power in the democracy that we still have if we hold on to it. Courage is contagious."
The Hill correspondent Amie Parnes, who is the co-author of FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House - a book about the 2024 election - has been speaking about Harris' camp being left 'shocked' as the results came in.
"She was completely shocked, and Tim Walz was shocked," Parnes told the Somebody’s Gotta Win with Tara Palmer podcast.
Parnes added: "They thought that they were going to win. And so, you know, when they come back now and say, 'Oh no, we didn’t really have a chance'. No, that’s not what they were thinking. They thought they were going to win.
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"Kamala Harris was looking at her crowd size, and they felt like the vibe was strong and people were saying, 'Oh, we have more boots on the ground. We’re doing better in fundraising'.
"And she bought all of that. She bought the hype, and so did a lot of people in the campaign."
Jonathan Allen, who wrote the book alongside Parnes, has said Barack Obama was initially reluctant to back Harris as the Democratic nominee as he didn't feel she had what it took to beat Trump.
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"He didn’t think that she was the best choice for Democrats, and he worked really behind the scenes for a long time to try to have a mini-primary, or an open convention, or a mini-primary leading to an open convention, did not have faith in her ability to win the election," the author said on MSNBC recently.