July 21, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris is at her official residence in Washington, D.C., spending a quiet Sunday with her two young great-nieces visiting from California. Her secure phone rings. From Delaware, President Joe Biden says, “I need to talk to you.”

Biden then says the words that will define the next 107 days of Harris’ life: “I’ve decided I’m dropping out.”

So begins Harris’ third book, 107 Days. Since its release in late September, Harris has been on a 15-city book tour that brought her to Portland on Wednesday night, exactly one year after those 107 days ended in her losing the 2024 presidential election. Literary Arts presented the Portland event.

Harris discussed her book with Rukaiyah Adams, chief executive officer of the Portland nonprofit 1803 Fund, at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in an hourlong event frequently punctuated by cheers and applause. The two women conversed on a set that evoked a reading room, with two armchairs, two wooden tables, and a tall bookshelf holding copies of 107 Days.

Asked if she’d always intended to write a book about her campaign, Harris said, “Absolutely not.” After a friend suggested she do so, she decided to for two reasons. 

The first: “Those 107 days are a part of American history,” Harris said. “It was important to me to make sure my voice was represented.”

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The second: The process of running for U.S. president is “pretty opaque,” Harris said. She wanted to “lift the hood on how this process works,” in hopes of giving readers greater access to it and an opportunity to see where they could fit in.

“Even in crafting the book,” Adams said, “she was providing service.”

Harris crafted the book like a campaign journal, weaving together public moments — campaign trail and television appearances, the Democratic National Convention, her debate with President Donald Trump — and personal moments — her nightly prayer that she’d done everything she could do that day. She said that sharing her private self is rare for her, but she wanted to “keep it real.”

Adams noted that 107 Days highlighted how little time Harris had to run, but that there’s also not been a lot of time for perspective since the 2024 election.

“I wanted to write it, put it on paper while my memory was fresh,” Harris replied. “It was cathartic … to share it and not hold on to it.”

Oct. 8, 2024. 

Throughout 107 Days, Harris looks back on critical campaign moments with a mixture of pride, defensiveness, and regret. Take the chapter about her appearance on ABC’s The View. When co-host Sunny Hostin asks if Harris would have done anything differently than Biden during their time in office, Harris veers from her notes and her answer to the same question in the debate. She says, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”

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Looking back, Harris the author acknowledges that Harris the candidate “pulled the pin on a hand grenade” with that answer. “Why. Didn’t. I. Separate. Myself. From. Joe. Biden?” She explains her answer by saying she heard the question as asking her to be critical of the president she’d served for four years. And in the pressure cooker of a historically short campaign, she chose loyalty.

Adams commented that she wasn’t willing to accept any statements in the book that Harris was “not bringing it.” 

Nov. 1, 2024. 

Some chapters of 107 Days read more like diary entries than others. “I knew it was going to be a long day. I just didn’t know quite how long,” begins the Nov. 1 chapter. It goes on to describe a breathtakingly packed schedule, including a flight from Nevada to a Wisconsin union rally and two interviews, one taped and one on a live podcast.

Harris said she’s heard some readers have been comparing the dates in her book with their own diaries or journals. 

Nov. 5, 2024.

Harris said the chapter about Election Night and the morning after was the most difficult one to write. It was the first time she’d given herself the space to reflect and process what happened. It was also the first time she learned that her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, had heard from a trusted source early on Election Day that the numbers weren’t going her way. “He carried that with him all day,” she said.

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Nov. 5, 2025.

The Harris event is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Outside the Schnitz, protesters from Portland for Palestine are calling Harris “Killer Kamala” and holding signs that say things such as “VP of genocide,” according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Inside, there’s a quiet buzz. When Harris walks onstage, she’s greeted with a roaring standing ovation from the near-sellout crowd. (Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, got 78 percent of the Multnomah County vote.) 

In addition to talking about her book, Harris celebrates the Democratic landslide of the night before, holds forth earnestly on the need for Americans to start rebuilding trust through conversation and community-building, and salutes Generation Z, which is well represented in the audience. 

She says her favorite campaign moments were when people would pass babies through the crowd to be photographed with her, then pass them back to their parents — a memory that has her cracking up.

She reminds her listeners of the call-and-response she did at her rallies: “When we fight … “

“We win!” audience members shout back. 

“Our democracy relies on our willingness to fight for it,” she says.

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It’s a message she’s put in her book as well, writing, “It might take a while. But the fight for our country is always worth it. And we will win.”