Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is expected to announce her running mate on Tuesday.
Last week, the Harris campaign announced she and her unnamed running mate would “crisscross the country” this week in a tour of battleground states, beginning with an event Tuesday evening in Philadelphia. But she has yet to officially announce who that running mate will be.
Harris, who was nominated during a virtual delegate vote last week, interviewed three potential picks on Sunday: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; Sen. Mark Kelly, R-Arizona; and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the New York Times reported.
By Monday afternoon, Reuters reported that Harris had narrowed her consideration to Shapiro and Walz.
Other rumored candidates include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear; and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
That Harris’ five-day, seven-state swing this week begins in Pennsylvania has led some to speculate Shapiro will be the pick. Shapiro won his campaign for Pennsylvania governor in 2022 by 15 points against a Trump-endorsed challenger. In 2020, running for reelection as the state’s attorney general, he won more votes than any statewide candidate in Pennsylvania history. That year, he outperformed Biden, who ran for president on the same ballot, by a wide margin; in 2016, his first election, he outperformed Clinton.
But Shapiro’s place atop Harris’ shortlist has caused intraparty rifts. Some progressives have challenged his support for Israel, going as far to launch a “No Genocide Josh” movement. Shapiro’s allies have chalked the opposition up to antisemitism; Shapiro is Jewish.
Aides to Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman warned Harris’ team not to select Shapiro, expressing concern the governor is “excessively focused on his own personal ambition,” Politico reported.
But selecting Shapiro could be a strategic move in a razor-thin election: Pennsylvania is a battleground state in the 2024, and it has more electoral votes (19) than any of the other swing states.
Walz, meanwhile, is a former U.S. Army National Guard member and high school teacher. While Minnesota is not a battleground state, two other proximate Midwestern states are: Michigan and Wisconsin.