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Vice President Kamala Harris has continued to build on her momentum since the Democratic Party coalesced around her. A new poll showed that she has made significant inroads with Latino voters and White Dudes for Harris raised more than $4 million on Monday.
But with the election 95 days away, Harris has to clear every hoop to have a chance at beating Donald Trump. That means she must ace her first big task: picking the person to run against Senator JD Vance as her running mate.
Historically, running mates have had a minimal effect on the top of the ticket. This time is different; similar to Barack Obama in 2008, Harris remains untested on the national stage and her 2020 campaign ended before the Iowa caucus. This means the running mate selection will have even higher salience.
Here’s The Independent’s ranking of who’s doing all the right moves in the veepstakes.
1. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro
Governor Josh Shapiro is a high-risk-high-reward choice. An incredibly popular governor whom some have thought could become the first Jewish president, his speaking style has earned him comparisons to Obama. This weekend, he campaigned with Harris this past weekend in his home state. Republicans like former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway floated Shapiro as a running mate idea before Biden dropped out.
Some pro-Palestine activists have criticized him for his clamping down on campus protests, even though he, like many Jewish Americans, has sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Shapiro will also likely face questions about his previous failed push for school vouchers in Pennsylvania. That will likely rankle some, given the fact that Harris spoke just last week to the American Federation of Teachers, one of the most influential unions.
2. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona
Kelly is seen as a safe pick. Having outperformed President Joe Biden and Harris in 2020 when he won a special election, he blew out an ultra-MAGA candidate in 2022. In the past, he criticized the Biden administration’s policy on immigration at the US-Mexico border.
But in a sign he might be pivoting, this week, he defended Harris, whom Republicans have dubbed the “Border Czar” after President Joe Biden put her in charge of handling the “root causes” of migration from Latin America to the United States.
“I think that’s just politics,” Kelly told The Independent. Kelly added that he recently went to Mexico and met with its outgoing and incoming president and spoke about changes the Biden administration made toward the border.
“So from the standpoint of asylum seekers, numbers are going down, but the all the hard work that she did in Northern Triangle countries, that stuff takes time, but they're starting to see some positive things.”
3. Andy Beshear
The Kentucky Governor came rushing out the gate regularly defending Harris, but moreover for hitting Vance for supposedly not being a real Appalachian Hillbilly — Vance grew up in Middletown, Ohio, which is not in the Appalachian area, though Vance’s grandparents were from just across the river in Kentucky.
He’s been accused of being a “nepo baby” given that his father was a popular governor. But he apparently remains in the running given his affable nature and relative youth.
4. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
Democrats can’t turn on any news channel without seeing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz going on the attack against Republicans. Particularly he has lobbed an attack that seems to have stuck: Republicans are weird. Democrats, including the Harris campaign, have since repeated the attacks on Republicans, including Trump and Vance.
Progressives have pushed for him to become Harris’s running mate and he delivered a pep talk during the White Dudes for Harris Zoom. But he remains a longshot compared to some of the other choices.
OUT:
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer
For months after her re-election, many had questioned whether Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer would run for the White House. That chorus grew louder after Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month. But on Monday, she told Morning Joe: “I’m not a part of the vetting.”
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper
On the surface, Roy Cooper seemed. They’re legitimate friends going back to Harris’s days as California attorney general and Cooper holding the same job in North Carolina. Harris has visited North Carolina regularly throughout her tenure as vice president as Biden wanted to make a play in the state.
But on Monday, he shocked many and took himself out of the running.
“I strongly support Vice President Harris’s campaign for president,” he said in a statement on X/Twitter. “I know she is going to win and it was an honor to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to be running on the national ticket.”
Wild card:
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg
Buttigieg was not in the initial rumblings about who should be a Harris running mate. But last week, former House Majority Whip James Clyburn, the man most people credit with making Biden president, said on MSNBC that “he’s been a fantastic Secretary of Transportation. He would make an outstanding VP.”
That’s an endorsement Buttigieg needs for one reason alone: during his 2020 campaign, Buttigieg never fully earned the trust of Black voters and he won just one contest in the overwhelmingly white Iowa. Clyburn, one of the senior Black Democrats in Congress, could give him a boost. He also appeared during the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call. But as of right now, there is little indication Buttigieg is high on the shortlist.
