Will Kamala Harris ever be POTUS?

[Schiff for Senate]

I am confident she will. She's a relatively young woman of colour who ran for president in 2020 and was able to get the VP slot. It is possible that Biden might die in office (as the oldest person elected president), in which case Harris is president. Or he might decide to retire after one term, in which case I think Harris would be the presumptive nominee. Otherwise, in 2028 when Biden retires (obviously assuming he wins reelection in 2024), it seems likely Harris will be the Democratic nominee - as a (relatively) young woman of color who ran for president and has (presumably - Biden might remove her from the ticket in 2024, but that's very, very unlikely) served as Vice-President for eight years. And given recent trends, there's no reason to assume Harris would necessarily lose in the general election, especially not if GA and AZ are blue-ish states by then, and definitely not if TX is in play (possible given current trends) - because then the GOP will need to focus completely on TX, without which it becomes impossible for them to win.

[Schiff for Senate]

She has a higher chance of being the next POTUS than any other single person, but that chance is still probably below 50%.

DeSantis much more likely.

The steps likely required for DeSantis to become president are:

1. Donald Trump does not for re-election. Maybe 50/50 odds on this.

2. DeSantis wins the open Republican nomination. Even if DeSantis starts out with the highest odds of any single candidate, which is no guarantee this far out by any means, they will not be over 50%. Almost nobody but sitting presidents or VPs are THAT heavily favored in an open contest.

3. DeSantis wins the general election after securing the nomination. Likely lower than 50% odds against an incumbent president/party, especially since Democrats are generally favored anyway given that the national partisan lean today is somewhere around D+2-3 rather than completely even.

The paths required for Harris to become president are likely one of the following:

1. Joe Biden dies, resigns, or otherwise leaves the presidency before his term expires. Low but not insignificantly low odds.

2. Joe Biden chooses not to run for a second term. Decent odds, though probably less than 50/50. Harris then runs and will have by far the highest odds of winning the Democratic nomination of any candidate, well above DeSantis for the Republican nomination. She will then have probably at least 50/50 odds of winning the general election, for the same reason DeSantis will probably have slightly less than 50/50 odds as mentioned above.

3. Joe Biden runs for a second term and wins. Then Harris could still become president for the same reasons as in number 1, or number 2 (though her odds of winning both the primary and general would be lower).

There are clearly far more highly plausible ways for Kamala Harris to become the next president than any other single individual on the planet, including DeSantis. That's not just my opinion. It's cold hard fact based on statistical analysis. This does not by any means guarantee she WILL win or that DeSantis very well could not beat her. It just means that as things stand right now, she has more paths with higher odds to become president than anyone else.

Very trye analysis. For the reasons you described, I don't think there's been a single Vice-President since George H.W. Bush by late 1988 where it's clearer that they will be president. I'd say that there's a close to 60% chance (maybe higher) that Harris has been president by January 3, 2029.