Former Vice President Kamala Harris is urging Democrats to expand the Supreme Court and change the Electoral College if they win Congress, a structural change critics call a dangerous response to her 2024 defeat.
Kamala Harris told podcast host Keke Palmer that Democrats should pack more justices onto the Supreme Court and push changes so “the popular vote has to matter” once they reclaim the House and Senate.
Fox News reported the former vice president laid out the agenda during a Tuesday appearance on “Baby, This is Keke Palmer,” framing the moves as structural work after midterm victories rather than ordinary legislation.
Harris lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote to President Donald Trump in 2024. She remains undecided about a 2028 run. Her latest remarks arrive while party donors and strategists openly question whether she should stay in the mix at all.
She cast court expansion as a way to restore constitutional spirit.
"The work that we can do about winning back the House and the Senate is going to be on a number of things. For example, I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court. We need more justices on the Supreme Court so that we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit and principles behind the Constitution of the United States,"
Harris said. She did not name a target number of justices.
Y. David Scharf, chairman of Morrison Cohen LLP and head of its government strategies practice, told Fox News Digital the proposal sets a hazardous pattern.
"Kamala Harris says she wants to defend democracy, but her solution is to revise its rules when Democrats don't like the results. That's a dangerous precedent,"
Scharf said. He noted the Court has had nine justices since 1869. Franklin Roosevelt tried to enlarge it and met resistance inside his own party. Scharf also recalled that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned expansion would make the Court look partisan.
Harris paired the court talk with Electoral College changes and statehood pushes.
"I believe that we should be pushing for what is possible around changing the Electoral College. Right? It's about, the popular vote has to matter, right? You know, all the things that make people feel, like, overwhelmed, and does their vote matter? We have, you know, listen, if the folks there want it, we should be pushing for statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C., right? These are some of the things that are structural that we need to do, but we need to reestablish affordable child care,"
she said.
Scharf answered that the Electoral College is written into the Constitution. Ending it requires a constitutional amendment, not a simple Democratic majority in Congress.
"You don't get to change the referee because you don't like the calls. Harris may think this is a winning message for the Democratic base, but it's a much tougher sell to the independent and swing voters her party needs."
Harris also pointed to the next midterms on the first Tuesday in November. She said new Democratic majorities could block what she described as a $1 trillion Medicaid cut and reverse research-funding decisions she tied to attacks on DEI, including work on fibroids.
“There are things that are not only about what will be helpful, but also stopping what is harmful, that we can do right away with these midterm elections,” she told Palmer.
The comments land amid internal Democratic skepticism. A Politico report based on nearly 20 California-based donors and strategists captured doubts about her political future. Longtime Democratic strategist Doug Herman, a veteran of Barack Obama’s campaigns, said she “totally blew it” and “hasn’t gotten into the mix.” Former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges added he sees “more of the same.”
Those doubts echo wider party friction over whether Harris should even stay on the trail, including red-state Democrats urging her to step back ahead of the midterms.
Outside advisor Maria Cardona pushed back hard, calling earlier criticism “infuriating.” She listed Harris’s ideas, expanded Supreme Court, lowering the voting age to 16, D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood, as “pretty groundbreaking policies.”
Harris’s own circle is hardly unified on another national bid. Reporting has detailed how Doug Emhoff privately prefers she sit out another White House run, underscoring the personal and political caution around 2028.
Harris told Palmer she has not decided on a presidential campaign. The uncertainty collides with open jockeying inside the party. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already signaled he would step aside for Harris in a 2028 primary, a gesture that only heightens the stakes of her current silence.
Donor fatigue is another live wire. A former DNC fundraiser has warned that major givers are finished with her as the party’s cash position weakens, a theme captured in coverage of how major donors are done with Harris as fundraising stalls.
Tim Walz, her 2024 running mate, recently warned of a reckoning if Democrats fail to deliver after retaking power. Harris’s podcast list, court expansion, Electoral College changes, new states, child care, is her answer to that pressure. It is also a bet that structural redesign will energize the base faster than ordinary governing.
The Constitution already supplies the amendment path for Electoral College changes. Court size has held at nine for more than 150 years through presidents of both parties. Harris is asking voters to treat a midterm majority as permission to redraw both.
When politicians lose under the existing rules and immediately demand new ones, voters notice who wants a fair contest and who wants a different scoreboard.
