107 Days

107 Days by Kamala Harris is the account of Harris’s run in the 2024 US presidential election against Donald Trump. The political memoir, published in 2025, begins on the morning of July 21, 2024, when Harris received the call that Joe Biden, the current president and Democratic nominee, was dropping out of the race amid growing concerns surrounding his age, fitness, and capacity for the job. Delving into themes of Loyalty and the Limits of Support, Leadership and Responsibility, and Integrity and Compromise in Political Campaigns, Harris’s memoir is a day-by-day insider’s account of the stress, anxiety, and joy of her historic presidential campaign. Harris is also the author of Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer (with Joan O’C. Hamilton, 2009), the memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019), and the children’s book Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019).

This guide uses the 2025 Simon & Schuster Kindle edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of violence, death, death by suicide, child death, child sexual abuse, hate speech, racism, xenophobia, anti-immigrant bias, and gender and anti-LGBT discrimination.

Summary

On June 27, 2024, President Joseph “Joe” Biden faced his opponent, former US president Donald J. Trump, in the first live debate of the 2024 presidential election. Vice President Kamala Devi Harris watched with the rest of the United States in growing dismay as President Biden flubbed question after question, speaking in a “thready” voice that emphasized his age. The debate was called a “disaster,” a “train wreck,” and an “embarrassment” in the media. Already, the American public had worried that Biden, at 81, was too old to serve a second term. Calls for the president to step aside grew stronger. However, Biden refused to drop out of the race until July 21, 2024, when he called Vice President Harris to inform her that he would announce his withdrawal that very afternoon and endorse her as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Harris’s staff dropped their Sunday afternoon plans to secure party support and launch Harris’s new campaign. Harris still had responsibilities as the vice president of the United States, but she hit the campaign trail the next day. Harris’s nomination had infused the campaign with new energy; more volunteers were signing up, and the campaign raised over $81 million in one day.

Harris and her campaign had a colossal task ahead. The Democratic convention had to be redesigned, Harris had to pick a running mate, and she had to make her case to the American people. After interviewing three candidates, Harris chose Minnesota Governor Timothy “Tim” Walz as her running mate, and at the Democratic National Convention on August 19, 2024, Harris took the stage to introduce herself to the American public on her own terms. Harris delivered an excellent debate performance against Donald Trump to the Democratic Party’s relief, hitting all her talking points and gracefully rebuking Trump’s attacks.

As the days counted down to the election, Harris raced to reach as many voters as possible. Harris’s efforts on the campaign trail were also interrupted by the work of governing; when large swaths of the South were devastated by Hurricane Helen, Harris had to step in to manage relief efforts and visit affected areas.

Trump refused to debate Harris again, and the vice presidential debate between Walz and JD Vance didn’t go well for Walz. Harris made her own mistake on October 8, 2024, when she told panelists on the talk show The View that she wouldn’t have done anything differently from Biden in the four years of his presidency. Harris still felt she owed the president her loyalty, but he was becoming increasingly unpopular, and she needed to find a way to distance herself from him and his agenda.

By mid-October, the polls had “stalled out.” Harris’s campaign couldn’t draw ahead of Trump, even as her rallies were large and enthusiastic. As Harris raced through swing states and interviews, Trump’s campaign tactics became more divisive as he launched a series of ads targeting the transgender community and sued CBS for reportedly editing Harris’s 60 Minutes interview to portray her more sympathetically. Elon Musk became deeply involved in Trump’s campaign, spending millions in key swing states like Pennsylvania to secure Trump support.

By the time election day arrived on November 5, 2024, Harris and Trump were “still stuck in a virtual dead heat” (268). When the news came through late that evening that Donald Trump was the projected winner, Harris was stunned and terrified.

Through the pain and fear she felt in the wake of the loss, she continued on with her duties, calling Trump to concede the election and giving her public concession speech. She promised her supporters that just because they had lost the election didn’t mean they would stop fighting. On January 6, 2025, Harris “did [her] duty for democracy” (291) and certified the election results in Trump’s favor.

Back in California, Harris remarks that the many dangers she warned of if Trump were to be elected have come to pass. She doesn’t want to tell the American people, “I told you so” (294), but she no longer trusts working exclusively within the system. Change must come from working with the American people inside and outside of the White House.