'No.'

Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin was emphatic.

'No,' she repeated when asked if Vice President Kamala Harris, and two-time failed presidential candidate, should seek higher office again.

Slotkin's answer to a worried 22-year-old University of Chicago student sparked a firestorm in the Democratic Party.

'It's funny, but it's not that funny,' the exasperated voter asked, pointing to Harris's lingering popularity among Democratic voters. 'Who's going to tell her no?'

'Someone has to tell Kamala Harris not to run.'

Slotkin conceded that Harris was not the 'fresh face' that the party needed.

It was a rare honest public moment of the party conversation about what to do with Harris as she steps up her activity on the campaign trail. 

Harris's catastrophic 15-week run for president in 2024 ended in her receiving some 6 million fewer popular votes than Biden won in 2020, just 226 electoral college votes to Donald Trump's 312, and the Democrats shedding support among loyal black and Hispanic voters. 

Any good will the Democrats expect to generate from a comeback in the midterms next week could be undermined by a failure to put forward a serious presidential candidate for 2028.

But telling Harris 'no' only serves as rocket fuel for her political motivations, Democratic sources familiar with her thinking told the Daily Mail.

Harris has long urged her supporters, 'don't let anyone tell you no,' citing a long list of people who told her that 'it was not her time' when she wanted to run for office.

'I eat no for breakfast,' she finishes, often with peals of laughter to signal her disdain for critics and doubters.

One Democratic insider told the Daily Mail that many Democratic donors and party officials are in 'panic mode' and looking for ways to end another Harris presidential campaign before it begins.

Harris supporters were not surprised when anonymous Democrats told the Wall Street Journal that Harris's husband Doug Emhoff had told them that he preferred that she not run.

Harris snapped back, sneering at those 'who think that I should just sit at home and eat bonbons and cook Doug's favorite foods,' reminding her critics in a CNN interview on Sunday that she could do both.

'I could cook Doug's favorite foods and do this,' she added.

Although Emhoff has been absent on the midterms campaign trail, he recently appeared with Harris in New Hampshire, again playing the role of a supportive spouse.  

Harris has long felt that she belongs in the Oval Office and that her failed 2024 campaign was not her fault, sources who worked with her told the Daily Mail.

The premise of her memoir 107 Days was that if she just had more time to campaign as the Democratic nominee, she would have defeated Donald Trump to become the president of the United States today.

Harris has been making calls to reconnect with donors, one Democratic strategist told the Daily Mail, and while they are polite, they are not always well received. 

'You don't want to say no to the former vice president,' one source familiar with the calls told the Daily Mail. 'At the same time, they are not committing to support her right now.' 

Many donors are still angry about how the Harris team spent over a billion dollars during the 2024 campaign, and there is little interest in supporting another campaign. 

When they hang up, the verdict is not kind to the former vice president. 

'They are repulsed and flabbergasted that she just won't take a hint,' another source familiar with Harris's conversations with some of the Democratic party's top donors told the Daily Mail.

Behind the scenes, donors are 'very snarky and condescending' about her chances. 

Other donors feel like Harris took too much time off, another source said, and was late to call them to process the results of her losing 2024 campaign. 

Harris is working to make up lost time, sources say, knowing that California Governor Gavin Newsom has also been courting their support. 

'Harris and Newsom have the same donors,' Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser and author of the book, Unburdened, told the Daily Mail. 'That's why she's doing this, to basically mark her territory before it's too late. It's like a blood feud.'

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who donated $17 million to Harris's presidential campaign in 2024, warned her in an interview that she faced a 'very challenging path' if she ran again. 

Harris, however, is pushing forward despite significant political headwinds. 

Last week, Harris very much looked like a candidate for office as she traveled across the country.

The failed presidential candidate, who turned 62 on Tuesday, campaigned for Democrats in Nevada, Mississippi and New Hampshire, with plans to go to Wisconsin and Georgia.

She's also doing more media appearances. 

'I'll be very specific. If I run, my motivation is not to beat other Democrats, it's to actually do the job,' she told CNN in an interview, revealing she was going 'back and forth' while mulling the decision. 

Behind the scenes, her allies are sharing a list of about two dozen top campaign aides and consultants she is working with as she mulls her decision, to prove to donors that she is serious about running again.

'She's serious about another run, but even if she ultimately decides against it, you want to have your team in place,' one former Harris campaign advisor told the Daily Mail.

Her behind-the-scenes activity is sparking a strong reaction from donors, who are fretting about how she would affect the race.

Right now, opposition to Harris is falling into two political camps, according to sources.

One camp believes that Democrats have to work to isolate the former vice president and stop her from running again, arguing that they made a mistake with Biden by trusting he would make the right decision until it was too late.

The second camp believes that Harris should be left alone to fail or succeed on her own steam, knowing that eventually she would lose interest or burn out if she tried to run again.

Supporters are sharing polls showing that Harris leads Vice President JD Vance by as much as five points compared to other top-tier Democrats like California Governor Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who only lead by one point. Vance is also leading New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by five points in hypothetical matchups.

But the overall majority of top political figures in the party are downplaying her chances of success if she runs again.

The coolness from Democrats, donors and strategists and even outright hostility to Harris running again could actually work in her favor, one former Kamala Harris official told the Daily Mail.

'If there are people who disagree with you and are fighting with you about what you want, that makes your objective even more authentic,' Jamal Simmons, a former communications director for Harris, told the Daily Mail.

On the campaign trail and in interviews, she makes it abundantly clear that she has shed the cautious Biden-era politics of the past.

She wants to expand the Supreme Court, endorse statehood for Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and even signaled support for reforming the Electoral College.

Simmons, who left Harris's office after a year in the position, said that Harris should continue her public outreach and talk to as many people as possible about what went wrong in 2024 and grapple with 'uncomfortable truths' about the race.

'She should certainly talk to as many people as she can and secure as much support as possible if she wants to run,' he said.

Simmons cautioned that donors would grow impatient if she took too much time to make a decision.

'She's going to have to make a choice by Valentine's Day, out of fairness to everyone else,' he said. 'Leaving those people in limbo isn't fair.'

Democratic strategists told the Daily Mail that she needed to get out of her comfort zone and speak publicly about her ambitions if she wanted to be taken seriously.

'I think Kamala Harris can do anything she sets her mind to; she's just got to decide,' Simmons said.

The Daily Mail reached out to a representative for Harris for comment.