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The veep is about to announce her veep, and the question is: Which white man will it be? The assumption being that Kamala Harris, a black woman, requires a Caucasian male to balance things out.
According to Reuters, Harris will tour battleground states with her running mate as early as next week. And Bloomberg reports that Harris has narrowed her search down to a shortlist of just three: Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
The case for both Kelly and Shapiro starts with their respective home states: Arizona and Pennsylvania are swing states, and tapping a popular senator or governor from one of them would presumably help Harris win.
Kelly is a former astronaut and the son of two cops, and he’s a moderate—voting with President Joe Biden only 95 percent of the time. If that sounds like a joke, it’s not. In these hyperpartisan times, only a handful of Democratic senators vote with Biden less often. On top of that, he knows something about running against MAGA: in 2022, he took on Republican challenger Blake Masters, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump in the special election for his U.S. Senate race, and won.
Shapiro, for his part, has courted oil and gas companies since taking office last year—a point that could help counter (well-founded) criticisms that Harris is, or at least was at some point, anti-fracking. Plus, he gave a great speech after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated at a campaign rally on July 13. He sounded human, decent, and likable as he paid tribute to 50-year-old former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who was murdered at the rally. The knock on Shapiro, though, is that he’s Jewish and supports Israel, and choosing him would alienate the progressive wing of the party. (Jewish Democrats, let that marinate.)
The irony of picking Kelly over Shapiro to avoid fracturing the base is Harris probably can’t win Arizona—Donald Trump leads by more than 4 points in the state—but she has a shot at Pennsylvania, and if she loses, that’s going to fracture the party.
How about Walz? His résumé is compelling. He comes from a small town. Served in the National Guard. Taught in an impoverished Indian community. And, as governor, he passed tax rebates for middle-class voters, marijuana legalization, and an abortion-rights bill. That’s the kind of sensible, popular stuff that cuts across race, gender, party, and geography lines. He could help Harris make the case that she’s a left-wing populist—a saner, less divisive response to Trump’s right-wing populism. He acquitted himself nicely in this recent interview, although I’m not sure that calling Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance “weird” when you’re the party of gender fluidity will connect with voters.
So which of these white male politicians should Harris pick?
Shapiro is the obvious running mate. He’s popular in Pennsylvania and might actually be able to deliver the state for her—a must-win for any Democrat. He’s smart and capable. And even though he might be thinking that Harris will likely lose and he’d prefer to run himself in 2028, no one gives up this kind of opportunity. No one says “I’d rather not be the second most powerful person on Earth.”
Peter Savodnik is a writer for The Free Press. Follow him on X @petersavodnik, and read his piece “Gaslighting the Public on Kamala Harris as ‘Border Czar.’ ”
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