Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday, rallying volunteers for Rep. Chris Pappas’s Senate bid while joking about her own frustration with President Trump’s administration.
“So for the last year and a half, we have been pissed,” Harris told the crowd, drawing laughter as she stretched out the word. “We’ve been depressed and angry.”
She continued in a more serious tone: “We’ve been frustrated. We’ve been feeling alone, hopeless, powerless. We’ve gone through the last year and a half — many of us, whether we admit it or not, have been saying things to the television that we would not say where we pray.”
Harris did not mention Trump by name during her remarks, though it was clear who she meant. She said “the most callous, corrupt and incompetent presidential administration we have ever witnessed” had taken hold of government, and she invoked the nation’s founders in describing the moment.
“The founders imagined a moment like this. They imagined a moment that there would be a tyrant in office,” Harris said. “They imagined a moment where there would be feckless people who are supposed leaders, who bend a knee at the foot of the tyrant.”
She added that the founders also “imagined there would be a moment that we would create for the people, for the people to speak and use their power to put in place the checks and balances that the people so rightly deserve.”
Stumping for Senate and statewide candidates
Harris appeared alongside New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Cinde Warmington, congressional candidate Stefany Shaheen, and Pappas, who is running for U.S. Senate against Republican John Sununu. Pappas currently holds a 6.5-percentage-point lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average, in what is considered a competitive race.
Her visit followed a stop in the state last week by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another Democrat whose name has circulated in early speculation about the 2028 presidential field.
After her remarks to volunteers, Harris was seen pouring drinks for supporters at Feathered Friend Brewing in Concord before taping an episode of the “Reproductive Freedom for All” podcast in front of a studio audience. There, she returned to the theme of channeling frustration into political action.
“Now is the moment where the power of the people kicks in to speak, and we are ready to speak loudly. I’m seeing that around the country. We have power,” Harris said. “And the power is with the people, and the people are done and ready to say, ‘We deserve more, and it doesn’t have to be this way.'”
Part of a broader travel schedule
Harris also visited Nevada and Mississippi in recent days and is scheduled to travel to Wisconsin and Georgia this week. The trips come as she sits atop early polling for a potential 2028 Democratic presidential run, holding an 11.5-percentage-point edge in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of contenders.
Harris lost the 2024 presidential election to Trump, who swept every swing state and won 50% of the popular vote to her 48%, after a three-month campaign in which her operation spent roughly $1 billion.
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