MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Many Democratic powerbrokers in D.C. are done with Kamala Harris. They see the former vice president as a politically toxic reminder of an unpopular president, Joe Biden.

• 🗳️ But among lots of Democratic voters — particularly Black voters crucial in any Democratic primary — Harris is an exalted, historic figure.

This past week put the party's divide over Harris into focus.

• 🎸 In a swing through the South, she was greeted like a rock star by enthusiastic crowds of mostly Black men and women, and white women. Many told Axios they want her to run again in 2028.
• Harris' appearances — like early polling for the 2028 race — defied top Democrats' belief that she isn't popular with the party's base, and that people blame her for Donald Trump's 2024 victory.

Many top Democratic lawmakers, donors, and even potential rivals remain skeptical Harris will run again, partly because of her ties to Biden.

• One top Democrat told Axios: "Kamala hasn't accepted she's not running yet."

⚡️ But Harris' southern tour had the energy of a campaign-in-waiting.

• Traveling by bus, she drew thousands of people to packed auditoriums in New Orleans, Jackson, Miss., and Memphis as part of her recently expanded book tour.
• In New Orleans she got a standing ovation when she was introduced to swear in new Mayor Helena Moreno, a longtime ally.
• In Jackson, Mayor John Horhn told Harris: "You don't know how much you mean to Mississippi. You don't know how much you mean to America." Horhn was more muted a week earlier when he ran into former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, another potential 2028 contender: "We could do worse. No doubt about that," before adding that he'd be a "great candidate."
• Memphis Mayor Paul Young called Harris, the first woman to be vice president, "a trailblazer" whom "many of us look up to."

Harris has hinted that if she were to run again, she'd call for changes to some pre-Trump policies she was a part of. She told people in Memphis they shouldn't "romanticize" how things were before.

Reality check: Goodwill and popularity aren't the same as political support.

• Many potential 2028 contenders believe Democratic voters want a candidate who can win in November — which, to them, means not Harris.
• There also weren't many white men at her recent events at a time when some in the party are trying to slice into Republicans' advantage with that demographic.
• Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee could help Harris win the Democratic nomination, but all three states are likely to go to the GOP candidate in the 2028 general election.

The big picture: In the past two decades, winning Black voters — particularly in the South — has been the key to winning the Democratic nomination.

• Polls indicate Harris has far more support among Black women — Democrats' most loyal voting bloc — than any other potential 2028 candidate. In pollster Cornell Belcher's surveys of Black voters, Harris' favorability is second only to Barack Obama's, whose presidential campaigns he worked on.
• "If you can't compete with Harris with Black voters, you can't win the South," Belcher said.

What's next: Harris' schedule for promoting "107 Days" includes events next month in Richmond, Va., Greensboro, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., Columbia, S.C., Savannah, Ga., Macon, Ga., and Montgomery, Ala.

• She told the crowd in Jackson: "If one considers themselves to be an American leader and does not spend time in the South, one cannot be an American leader."

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— Alex Thompson

Democrats weighing bids for president are struggling for footing on transgender issues, dodging questions on the topic more than a year after President Trump's "Kamala is for they/them" ad was widely seen as one of his most effective attacks.

📺 Why it matters: Republicans already are promising to air 2028 campaign ads blasting Democrats over the party's support for trans rights, as polls show a majority of Americans favoring the GOP's side on key parts of the debate.

• GOP candidates have been particularly aggressive with ads objecting to trans girls participating in high school girls' sports.

Zoom in: This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stumbled when conservative influencer Ben Shapiro pressed him on the issue on Newsom's podcast.

• "The question that you're not wanting to answer ... is whether boys can become girls," Shapiro said.
• "Yeah, I just, well, I think, uh, for the grace of God," Newsom replied.

😬 Some Democrats winced at seeing Newsom — a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights — appear unprepared for a Republican "gotcha" question.

• "You need a clear answer, whatever it is," Liam Kerr, co-founder of the centrist Welcome PAC, told Axios.

✏️ Axios quizzed nearly 20 Democrats viewed as possible 2028 contenders. Most didn't want to talk about trans rights.

• We chose questions based on those that Democratic candidates up and down ballots have encountered in interviews and ads for years.
• We asked: Should transgender girls be able to participate in girls' sports? Do you believe transgender youths under age 18 should be able to be placed on puberty blockers and hormones? And what is your response to the question: "Can a man become a woman?"
• Former Vice President Harris, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, California Rep. Ro Khanna and Newsom were among those declining to comment or not responding.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Chicago's ex-Mayor Emanuel and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg were the only three potential contenders who shared answers.

• A spokesperson for Shapiro pointed us to his previous remarks to The Atlantic, in which he said local scholastic sports officials, not politicians, should make decisions about transgender athletes.
• But the governor said his personal view is different, and that trans youths don't "deserve an unfair advantage on the playing field." His spokesperson noted Shapiro's recent legal action against the Trump administration over its efforts to stop gender-transition care for children.

Emanuel said his positions hadn't changed since he was interviewed recently by conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, who asked whether "boys should be able to play in girls' sports" and "can a man become a woman?"

• Emanuel said "no" to both. He also said parents should make decisions about whether transgender minors are able to access hormones.

A Buttigieg spokesperson referred us to an NPR interview in which he was asked to respond to the Emanuel-Kelly conversation.

• Buttigieg called for "compassion" and said decisions about trans athletes should be made by sports leagues.

Some Democratic strategists and officials argue they've learned to neutralize the issue, pointing to Republicans' anti-trans ads that appeared to fall flat in last year's Virginia gubernatorial election after Democrat Abigail Spanberger responded aggressively to the attacks.

🖼️ The big picture: Most Americans support anti-discrimination protections for trans people, according to a Pew Research Center survey last year. But they also favor GOP-backed policies barring gender transitions for minors and requiring trans athletes to play on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, Pew found.

• Democrats broadly support trans rights and gender-affirming care, but many officials and strategists feel caught between a sympathetic, vulnerable community and a broader electorate that has grown more conservative on the issue.

When Newsom, and some other Democrats, voiced opposition to transgender girls competing in girls' sports in 2024, he drew fire from progressives such as Ocasio-Cortez.

• "If you're an LGBT kid or a family," she said, "we can't throw you under the bus in order to win an election."

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— Holly Otterbein

A look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders are up to:

• Newsom vowed to fight a proposed billionaires' tax in California, risking the ire of the progressive wing of his party. But the governor, who has been called an ideological chameleon by friends and foes alike, left the door open to a national wealth tax.
• Ocasio-Cortez fundraised for centrist Senate candidate Mary Peltola of Alaska. It's the latest example of the New York progressive darling making nice with the party's establishment, which backs Peltola.
• Beshear was asked by Politico's Jonathan Martin about what some see as his biggest vulnerability: a deficit of "rizz." The Kentucky governor joked that he's got "maybe a little aura."
• Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly has leveraged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's efforts to demote the retired Navy captain into 1.1 million new social media followers since November.
• Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore formed an unlikely alliance with the Trump administration to push for tech companies to pay for soaring energy costs — a sign that both parties are nervous about voter backlash to power-guzzling AI data centers.
• Buttigieg visited the Detroit Auto Show and was coy when asked if he'll run for president again. "I don't know," he said. He drew about 1,000 people to a town hall in Wisconsin a couple of days later.
• Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin told the New York Times she was being investigated by federal prosecutors after she participated in a video urging members of the military to not obey illegal orders, as is required under military code. Kelly's appearance in the same video led Hegseth to target him for punishment.
• NPR affiliate WGLT reported that Pritzker has given nearly 500 media interviews during his seven-year tenure in Illinois, including two dozen appearances on both CNN and MS Now, 15 stops with the New York Times, and just two with Fox News. The governor's strategy has shifted as he's inched closer to a presidential run: In 2019, 82% of his interviews were with local media. By 2025, that had fallen to 19%.
• A new poll found Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has an enviable 60% approval rating in her critical battleground state, suggesting that her pragmatic approach to dealing with President Trump is paying off, at least at home.
• Khanna sat for a nearly two-hour interview with conservative podcaster Shawn Ryan where he spoke about his work to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
• Booker traveled to North Carolina and South Carolina, where he rallied Democrats and talked about health care cuts.
• Emanuel said it's time "to end ICE as we know it today under Donald Trump," telling CNN the president transformed the agency into a "lawless mob." The former Chicago mayor will discuss the future of education on Wednesday at the Center for American Progress in D.C.
• Newsom will be in Switzerland on Thursday to speak at Davos.

Several potential 2028 candidates hit the road as the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend approached, but former Vice President Harris had the most poignant stop.

• On Thursday, King's birthday, she toured Memphis' National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated in 1968.
• Harris, the nation's second Black woman senator and the first woman vice president, toured the museum and mingled with guests. At the end, she spent several minutes on the balcony where King was shot.

— Alex Thompson