It’s Becoming Increasingly Clear Who the Left Wants to become Kamala Harris’s Vice President

There are exceptions to every rule. While the number one rule for picking a Vice-Presidential candidate has always been to do no harm, sometimes candidates who are behind in the polls have to make bolder choices.

John McCain felt desperate when he picked Sarah Palin in 2008, and Biden had already committed to picking a female for his Vice President when he took Harris, even though the former Senator from California’s campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary was embarrassing, with former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard effectively ending her campaign.

Donald Trump is leading against Harris nationally and in most of the battleground states in nearly every poll that has come out over the last several months. Vice President Harris also enters the campaign with low personal approval ratings and high unfavourability rankings as well. The nominee for President of the United States will likely be more aggressive with her pick for Vice President since she has ground to make up. Harris needs to pick someone who can move the needle politically for her and the Democratic Party.

The shortlist of Harris’s possible running mates has been reported to include Senator Mark Kelly (AZ), Governor Josh Shapiro (PA), Governor Roy Cooper (NC), Governor J,B. Pritzker (IL), and Governor Andy Beshear (KY).

Pete Buttigieg has been mentioned as well.

Even though Kelly is a moderate who is popular with some groups within the Democratic primary, he barely won reelection in 2022 with just 51% of the vote, and the open border will make winning Arizona difficult for the Democrats. Arizona is also not close to as important of a battleground state as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Pritzker was not competent in Illinois and he’s also a trust fund beneficiary with no real accomplishments of his own that governs a state that is not a battleground one.

Buttigieg doesn’t move help with any key states, and some social conservatives in the Democratic party may also not approve of his wear-it-on-the-sleeve homosexual orientation.

Beshear governs the very conservative state of Kentucky Democrats do not have a realistic chance of winning, He would not make sense as a partner with Harris either.

The two candidates who make the most sense for Harris are Governor Cooper and Governor Shapiro, but Shapiro would be the stronger choice by far.

Pennsylvania is a much more important swing state than North Carolina, and Cooper is also 67, he would likely be 76 by the time Harris was no longer running for President if she won. Shapiro is the Democrats’ best choice for Vice Presidential nominee for multiple reasons. The 51-year-old Jewish Governor of the most important swing state in the country Pennsylvania, is also a moderate, and he has made a concerted effort to support law enforcement and not take more partisan left-wing positions. His Jewish faith would also likely assuage some moderate Democrats that a potential Harris administration would remain in support of Israel as well.

Harris and Shapiro also have a relationship already from when both served as Attorneys General of their states.

Shapiro’s approval rating in this critically important battleground state is high, with the number ranging from 55-60% for most of his time as Governor. As Pennsylvania’s AG before running for Governor, he has been campaigning statewide for a while. Shapiro was in the spotlight as Attorney General of Pennsylvania after the 2020 election, he’s used to doing interviews with the national media. Shapiro’s actions as the top lawyer in Pennsylvania were very partisan, but he has still governed as a centrist. There are moderates in the Democratic party that don’t find Harris that appealing and dislike the way they view Biden was pushed aside for the more progressive Vice President; a centrist such as Shapiro would likely appeal to them as well.

The Biden administration has been the most pathetic and incompetent presidency in the history of the United States, but the polls remain close. Harris cannot run on her record, she has none, but the left will likely try to (fraudulently) reposition the former Senator from California as a moderate, and picking a centrist such as Shapiro to be her Vice-Presidential candidate may help slightly with the effort to remake her failed image. The Democratic field is weak, as the party’s primary in 2020 showed, the establishment doesn’t have many choices, and their pick won’t likely make a significant difference, the Governor of Pennsylvania will likely be her choice.