Kamala Harris explains how election defeat was as painful as the death of her mother

Kamala Harris has opened up about the impact that her 2024 election loss had on her in an eye-opening interview.

The former vice president lost out to Donald Trump after she stepped in as the Democratic nominee when President Joe Biden withdrew from the election.

Despite a hard fought campaign, Harris ultimately failed to secure victory for the Democrats and Trump won a second term in the White House - despite his unpopularity with some Republicans.

Now, Harris has revealed the impact that the electoral defeat had on her in an interview on The View to promote her upcoming memoir 107 Days, the title of which is a reference to the number of days she had to run her campaign after Biden's withdrawal.

Harris compared the pain she felt at losing the election to that of grieving her own mother.

Kamala appeared on The View (YouTube/The View)

Harris received a rapturous welcome onto the show, and opened her segment by saying that: "Lots of people have been coming up to me crying."

Describing her feelings on election night, she said: "That night, I grieved in a way that I have not since my mother died.

"The pain, it was not at all about losing a race, I knew what it was going to mean for the country."

She added: "All I could say over again was 'my god, my god, my god'. It was very difficult. I know many people experienced it in different ways."

As for actually thinking about election night all over again, Harris confessed that she and her husband had not discussed election night until she was writing the book.

"That chapter of the book was probably one of the most difficult things that I had to reflect on and write about," she said.

"It wasn't until I was writing that chapter that we ever talked about election night. We had never talked about election night, it was that traumatic."

Trump at the UN General Assembly (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

However, when asked how she has been since her devastating loss, she answered: "In spite of everything that's happening in the world I don't have any complaints."

Harris has hit out against Trump since her defeat, branding him a 'con man' and saying 'he's really good at it'.

She also criticised Biden in the book, in particular his decision to run for a second term.

"The stakes were simply too high," she wrote. "This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision."