FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE

You wouldn’t know that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election if you’d been standing outside the Chevalier Theater in Medford, Massachusetts (a near suburb of Boston) early Saturday afternoon. The line to fill the 1900-seat theater had already formed by noon for a show slated to begin at 2 pm. By 1:15 it stretched around several blocks festooned with banners recalling the 250^th anniversary of the April 1775 ride of Paul Revere who galloped through Medford on his way to Lexington and Concord.

As the crowd went through security, those who had entered saw a slide show depicting scenes from Harris’s campaign. Among them were photos of her addressing enormous crowds and in more intimate settings, including with former President Barack Obama and with Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who ran for vice-president on the Democratic ticket along with Harris. Notably absent from the slides were any depictions of Harris with President Joe Biden, with whom Harris served as vice president.

As the audience settled into its seats, a very short video presented the trajectory of Harris’s career from California Attorney General to U.S. Senator from California to Vice-President and finally Democratic Party presidential nominee. Substack superstar historian Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American) introduced Harris and acted as interlocutor throughout the approximately 75-minute-long event. She began by saying that Harris’s book was the latest in a long line of campaign histories, starting with Theodore White’s 1960 analysis of the campaign that resulted in the election of John F. Kennedy, The Making of the President. According to Richardson, campaign histories tend to be long and slow-paced. In contrast, Harris’s 107 Days, she said, is a page-turner.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the first stop of her book tour for her new book about her presidential campaign, “107 Days,” at Town Hall in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

(photo of Kamala Harris by Hope Watt-Bucci)

Harris arrived on the stage in a plum-colored pantsuit. Not surprisingly, she was greeted with a standing ovation and thunderous applause. She said she structured 107 Days like a day-by-day journal, explaining that during the campaign itself, she had had no time to reflect on or process what she was going through. Writing the book allowed her “to get it out;” at the same time, she said, she wrote the book to inform readers about how a modern campaign runs.

As an example, Harris described the extensive process of debate prep. While people she described as “very smart and very mean” coached her through the process of finding ways to discuss significant issues in a very short time, one of them also took on the role of “a complete asshole” to tear her down and build her up again.

Despite these grueling hours of prep, things occurred which were beyond their anticipation—things like her opponent (who was never named during the conversation) accusing immigrants of eating their neighbors’ pets, or, as happened when Harris debated Mike Pence in the 2020 vice-presidential debate, having a fly settle on her opponent’s white hair.

Whether considering domestic or international policies, Harris said her focus has always been on how a policy will affect children. She discussed her 2023 trip to Africa as vice president, undertaken she said, not to promote aid but to encourage U.S. investment in the continent where the median age is 19. She tied the global climate crisis to growing waves of migration and increased corruption as resources become increasingly scarce.

The audience was not uniformly favorable. Hecklers interrupted Harris on several occasions during the first 30 minutes of her presentation. Each time, the rest of the audience, many of whom had waited for well over two hours (security measures meant the event started more than 45 minutes late) to hear Harris, booed them down and then cheered as they were removed by security guards. Generally, Richardson and Harris ignored the disruptions, but in response to one, Harris switched topics to claim that she had been the first person at her level of government to publicly express concern about starvation in Gaza early in 2024. She said that the Biden administration had erred in providing support to Netanyahu but added that the present administration “cares nothing about Gaza.”

Unlike Paul Revere, Harris did not need to warn this audience about an impending threat. Most of those in the theater were there because they were concerned about the direction of the country. In response to questions from the audience about what they as individuals can do in the present moment, Harris encouraged people to use their power. In addition to attending rallies, writing to elected officials, and voting, she urged people to use their influence as consumers to demand ethical behavior. She urged them as well to volunteer for nonprofits working on issues such as hunger and immigrant rights and that stand up for people targeted by hate.

“We cannot let our spirit be defeated,” she concluded. “This is our country.” Finally, she said, she wanted to encourage people to find joy within themselves. Despite the present circumstances, she said, “we know what we deserve.”

Kamala Harris 107 Days Book Tour
introduced by Heather Cox Richardson
Chevalier Theater in Boston
tour continues to April 26, 2026
for more info, visit 107 Days Tour