Former Vice President Kamala Harris was welcomed home to California with a collective shrug by many of her neighbors, which was all they could muster when asked about the possibility of her future as the state’s next governor.

Early polling in the 2026 California gubernatorial race shows Harris garnering little support beyond a baseline she earns through sheer name identification among the general public. She is widely believed to be mulling a run ahead of a potential 2028 presidential campaign.

Ask registered voters on any Golden State street and you’re likely to get a range of emotions including “joyful,” “outraged” or “hopeless,” according to a new poll by Politico and the UC Berkeley Citrin Center gauging the current in what will be California’s first open race for governor in eight years.

Respondents were given a list of adjectives to choose from when asked how they felt about a Governor Harris — “joyful,” “mostly excited,” “indifferent,” “irritated,” “outraged,” “hopeless,” or other — and could select multiple options.

The poll was then presented to two distinct groups: registered voters and “policy influencers,” a select pod of state and federal lawmakers, staffers, and other paid subscribers to Politico publications.

Among the latter, 36% of influencers in the heavily-Democratic state favored the term “indifferent” to describe their ambivalence toward a Harris campaign for governor. That’s not surprising, some of her former in-state peers say.

“She’s never been that popular in the California political high school,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime Los Angeles-based anti-Trump Republican strategist.

Nearly an identical number of insiders say they would either feel “excited” to “irritated” about a Harris gubernatorial bid, at 22% and 20%, respectively.

The passion and pessimism for Harris was even more pronounced among registered voters, however. The former vice president captures the hearts of California Democrats, with three in four saying they are either “joyful” or “excited” about a potential 2026 run.

But a deeper look into the feelings of registered independent voters reveals possible weaknesses: 26% said they felt “irritated” by the prospect of a Harris campaign for governor while another 21% said it made them feel mostly “hopeless.”

Two in 10 registered California voters are independent compared to about one in four Republicans. Together, both groups are especially irritated by the prospect of Harris as their next governor, and that may be enough to give her pause when Democrats make up less than half of all voters statewide.

Harris has told allies she’s set an end-of-summer deadline for herself on whether to jump into the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. Other rumored contenders, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a close Harris friend, have floated backup plans to supporters about running if she opts against it.

Murphy, who has previously advised billionaire real estate mogul Rick Caruso while he mulls his own run for governor, said Harris’s weak polling signals blood in the water.

“If I were a rival Democrat, I look at those numbers, and I would say she’ll start in front, but she’s vulnerable to a campaign,” he said. “So there’s plenty of time to move.”