107 Days – Kamala Harris

I’m kind of surprised by the roll-out of 107 Days. Every report I’ve seen says it has rocketed to the top of the best-seller lists in the US, but I’ve seen very little ‘buzz’ about it. Maybe the marketing department figures that a book about such a provocative subject – a behind-the-scenes account of Kamala Harris’s (ultimately unsuccessful) bid to keep the US presidency from falling back into Donald Trump’s hands – doesn’t need a lot of hype. In any case, I jumped on it when I saw it was available through the Libro.fm ALC program.

The book begins with the moment that Joe Biden called Harris to tell her that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, and that he would endorse her as the next Democratic candidate. Harris’s account of this experience alone had my jaw dropping: Biden hadn’t even mentioned this possibility to Harris prior to 15 July (six days before the official call), and he told her a mere 22 minutes before announcing it to the world.

This left Harris with just 107 days (as the title suggests) to convince American voters that she would make a better president than a convicted felon who lies with impunity. It was the shortest campaign in modern presidential history.

107 Days feels like a particularly authentic and intimate account in the audiobook format, as it’s read by the author herself. She does an excellent job, with the perfect inflections in her voice – even a little chuckle here and there – to emphasise the points that her words are making.

And her words aren’t all “we tried our best” fluff. She’s frank about the disastrous debate that put pressure on Biden to drop out, and the gaffes that her campaign struggled to overcome. She’s open about her struggles to communicate her message with the limited time available to her. She names names, and she doesn’t even shy away from an “I told you so” in the Afterword. It’s a surprisingly gripping story, despite the fact that we know all too well how it turned out.

Perhaps the reason that 107 Days hasn’t made a bigger splash is that it’s simply too soon for most of us to think about – a tantalising glimpse into what could have been feels cruel. Still, it’s a crucial document about a pivotal moment in American politics, and it deserves a prominent spot on the history shelf.

Read 107 Days on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)