Kamala Harris called for expanding the Supreme Court and making the popular vote decisive, arguing Democrats should lock in structural changes if they retake Congress.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris used a fresh podcast interview to urge a larger Supreme Court and a presidential system in which the national popular vote “has to matter,” framing both as work Democrats should pursue if they regain control of Congress.

The remarks came on the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast episode released Tuesday. Harris did not offer a bill text, a target number of new seats, or a detailed map for rewriting how presidents are chosen. She did make the direction plain.

“I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court,” Harris said. She added that more justices are needed “so that we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit and principles behind the Constitution of the United States.”

"I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court,"

Newsweek reported the exchange and noted that the Constitution does not fix the Court’s size. Congress has altered that number before. The bench has stood at nine justices since 1869. Any new seats would be filled by presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

Court already carries a 6-3 conservative majority

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority after three confirmations during President Donald Trump’s first term: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. That majority has delivered major rulings on abortion, voting rules, presidential power, and other flashpoints. Harris’s call would open the door to dilute it by statute rather than by vacancy.

In July, four months before the midterms, Trump flagged the same play on Truth Social. He wrote that “The Dumocrats are openly stating that they plan to...EXPAND THE SUPREME COURT,” tying the warning to a Politico account of a resolution from Black, Hispanic, and progressive caucus chairs that listed “enacting structural changes” to the court among other reforms. He argued Republicans should move first or risk losing future elections.

A September Marquette Law School poll found 53 percent of adults favored increasing the number of justices and 47 percent opposed. Support ran 68 percent among Democrats, 56 percent among independents, and 35 percent among Republicans. The numbers show a partisan split, not a settled national consensus for packing the bench.

Harris has raised the expansion idea before, including in coverage of her call for a larger Court while eyeing 2028. The podcast put the demand back in the open while she still leads early Democratic primary averages.

Popular vote “has to matter,” she says

On elections, Harris said the popular vote “has to matter.” She did not spell out a full replacement plan. Two paths exist in the public debate: a constitutional amendment, which needs two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, or the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That compact would bind participating states’ electors to the national popular-vote winner once states totaling at least 270 electoral votes join.

The Electoral College lets a candidate win the presidency without a national popular-vote plurality because most states award all their electors to the statewide winner. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found 63 percent of Americans preferred a pure national popular-vote system and 35 percent favored keeping the Electoral College. Eight in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents backed replacement. Republicans split 53 percent for the current system and 46 percent for popular vote.

Democrats won the national popular vote in seven of the eight presidential elections from 1992 through 2020. Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2024. The reform talk now arrives after that result, not before it.

Harris also backed pushing statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico if residents want it. Statehood would add senators, representatives, and electoral votes. By itself it would not make the national popular vote the decider of the presidency. It would change the map of representation.

2026 first, 2028 undecided

Palmer asked whether Harris would run for president again. Harris answered, “I haven’t decided. I haven’t decided yet. I will, I promise.” She put the nearer contest first: “’28 don’t matter if we don’t do ’26 right.”

"I haven’t decided. I haven’t decided yet. I will, I promise."

Early polling still places her ahead of other unannounced names. A RealClearPolling average through October 6 had Harris at 26.4 percent and California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 14.4 percent. A Financial Times/Focaldata poll conducted October 3, 6 showed Harris at 30 percent and Newsom at 15 percent. Polymarket figures early Friday morning listed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York at 17 percent, Newsom at 15 percent, Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia at 14 percent, and Harris at 7 percent to win the Democratic nomination. Market prices are not polls, and no major Democratic candidate has declared.

Her standing inside the party remains contested ground, a point underscored in reporting on how Democrats split over Harris’s 2028 prospects. The structural agenda she is floating would outlast any single primary season.

Newsweek reached out to the Office of Kamala Harris outside regular hours for comment. No reply was reported in the piece.

Rules change when outcomes disappoint

Expanding the Court by legislation is lawful in the narrow sense that the Constitution leaves the number to Congress. Using that power to answer a 6-3 majority built through confirmed vacancies is a different political act. So is shifting presidential selection toward a national popular-vote rule after decades in which Democrats often led the popular tally yet still faced Electoral College math, and after a cycle in which Trump carried both.

The same Court term now rolling forward already features high-stakes fights, including immigration cases that could shape enforcement power. Adding seats midstream would not be a neutral housekeeping measure. It would be a bid to reshape the institution that is hearing those cases.

Harris has also drawn conservative fire on election-administration fights, including when she warned against voter-identity requirements in the SAVE Act debate. The podcast remarks fit a broader pattern: pressure on institutions and rules that stand between progressive priorities and immediate results.

Recent Court action has cut both ways on process questions, as when the justices blocked a rushed lower-court order on an FCC campaign-ad rate rule. That record of institutional push-and-pull is exactly why changing the Court’s size by political vote carries heavy weight.

Harris’s pitch is clear enough without a draft statute. Grow the bench. Elevate the national popular vote. Add states if residents agree. Do the structural work if Democrats retake Congress. Focus on 2026 before any 2028 decision. Trump’s July warning treated that agenda as a live threat. The podcast shows the idea is still in circulation at the top of the Democratic field.

When election results and court majorities stop matching the progressive map, the answer on offer is not persuasion, it is rewriting the institutions themselves.