Former Vice President Kamala Harris’s decision not to run for California governor next year opens the door for her to enter what is already expected to be a crowded field for Democratic presidential candidates in 2028.

Democrats — from operatives to donors and lawmakers — were particularly interested in Harris’s decision as speculation mounts about which Democrats will run in 2028.

And while Harris was the Democratic nominee just last year, political observers say the party’s nomination is not necessarily hers for the taking.

“We live in a world where I don’t think anybody getting into a race is going to stop anybody from getting into a race,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who ran former President Obama’s Florida operation in 2008. “I don’t think her entrance into the race changes anybody’s calculus.”

The 2028 race for the White House will not include an incumbent president, the first time that has happened since 2016.

The battle for the Democratic nomination looks wide open, and many expect it to be the most crowded field in decades, with as many as 30 candidates considering a run.

Some Democrats are already testing the waters.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has visited New Hampshire, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has plans to be in Michigan in October, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a podcast where he invites not just Democrats but Republicans to talk politics.

Harris is writing a book, which will be watched with great anticipation. Democrats are sure to be curious about her thoughts on the 2024 race, and how former President Biden affected her candidacy.

Harris will enter the race as a front-runner given she won the nomination and had to ramp up her candidacy in a tight period of time after Biden’s decision to drop out of the race in July 2024.

But some caution that Democrats should not get too attached to Harris.

“It’s in the Democrats’ best interest … to make sure that no one appears to be elevated to the role of Democratic nominee,” said Democratic strategist Basil Smikle. “People want to see a process and a debate about the future of the party. Make it robust. Make it passionate. And somebody will emerge.”

“Primaries can be very healthy for being able to sharpen the message and the messenger,” he added.

Early polling on potential 2028 candidates suggest that while Harris is one front-runner, so far Buttigieg, Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), a progressive leader, are also in the mix. All have spent time in the national spotlight in recent months.

Other top potential Democratic candidates include Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

One McLaughlin poll in mid-July showed Harris leading the field with support from 25 percent of those surveyed. Another AtlasIntel poll in mid-July showed Harris with support from 14 percent of those surveyed. Buttigieg had 27 percent support, Ocasio-Cortez 19 percent and Newsom 16 percent.

The outlines of the race come as the Democratic Party finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis.

While there’s energy on the left, some Democrats have made the argument that the party needs to find its way back to the middle in order to attract independents and even some Republicans.

The fact that Harris lost the 2024 contest to President Trump will be a huge factor if she runs again in 2028, and some critics in the party already think Democrats should move in a different direction.

“Honestly, it’s a mistake,” one Democratic donor said. “We can’t turn the page and have the same people run again.”

“She tried hard. She did a great job, but this doesn’t mesh with the whole ‘fresh faces, fresh ideas’ narrative that we’ve all been kicking around since November’s loss,” the donor said.

“We Democrats tend to do best in these presidential races when we put up a fresh face,” said longtime Democratic strategist Garry South, referring to former Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Carter. “I mean, you can go all the way back to John F. Kennedy in 1960.”

South added that right now, Democrats are looking for someone to “bail them out” from their rudderless state, and “I don’t think they’re going to see Kamala Harris in that light,” he said.

In a Wednesday interview on CNN, Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who served as a strategist for Obama, said Harris will begin “as the polling leader in any race for president” since she was the 2024 nominee.

But Axelrod noted that “a lot of Democrats want to turn the page on all of that and look forward, and so it’s not going to be easy for her,” he said.

Some strategists predict that if Harris were to run, a frequent talking point for the competition would be her performance as vice president under Biden.

“I think her time as vice president was unimpressive, at least neutral and maybe detrimental to a presidential run,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “So that will give all of her competitors the sense that while she has that vice presidential White House experience, which creates a real breadth of understanding that a senator or a governor just doesn’t have, they’ll also feel that she is vulnerable and the nomination is up for grabs.”

But Harris allies maintain that the former vice president not only ran a good race in 2024 — having inherited it with only 107 days left in the campaign — but that she also came close to winning.

And Harris has told allies that she would have won the race if she’d only had more time.

“She feels like she had the momentum and she came so close, so why wouldn’t she run again?” one ally said. “Only in this party would we reject someone who came within a yard of victory.”

Harris’s strengths could be enough for her to win the nomination again in 2028.

“The nomination still runs through Black women and the South,” Schale said, adding that Harris is, “dare I say, probably even a front-runner” in the race — at least so far.

“It would be crazy to underestimate her,” he said.