WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will begin a tour of swing states next week with her as-yet-unnamed running mate, with stops in seven swing states from Pennsylvania to Nevada, her campaign team said Tuesday.
The planned tour is the latest sign of Harris’ rapid evolution from President Joe Biden’s supporting vice presidential candidate to the likely Democratic nominee, now poised to nominate her No. 2 and take on Republican Donald Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance.
Harris said Tuesday she had not yet made a decision on who she would select.
Those who are being considered are continuing a time-honored tradition: summer auditions in which vice presidential candidates walk the fine line between open self-promotion and devoted advocacy for the potential boss.
In that spirit, Democrat Josh Shapiro told enthusiastic voters in suburban Philadelphia this week that Harris belongs in the White House — and then reminded them of all his accomplishments as governor of the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, in turn, told voters in Georgia that Harris has the makings of a “great president” — and then pointed to the elections he won as a Democrat in Republican territory.
Harris’ campaign is currently considering about a dozen potential vice presidential candidates, people familiar with the selection process say. Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly are considered favorites, according to the people.
The campaign said Harris and her running mate will stop in Philadelphia, western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, North Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, Phoenix and Las Vegas next week.
Meanwhile, Harris’ advisers, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, have been poring over reams of documents submitted by potential vice presidential candidates, while the candidate herself is having face-to-face interviews with the finalists, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.
Harris, another person familiar with the matter said, is looking for someone with leadership experience who can also serve as a governing partner. The notion of a so-called tiny list has not stopped Democrats at the national level from moving into the spotlight.
“I’m not going to talk about my interactions with the campaign,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker recently explained on MSNBC. However, he added, “Let’s just say I’m aware that the vetting process is pretty thorough.” He then listed his accomplishments, mentioning that he was the only governor in the Midwest to raise his state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Harris would be the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of South Asian descent to become president. Many Democrats argue that she should make her slate of candidates both demographically and politically balanced.
The Democrats’ vice presidential list shows notable differences
Shapiro, 51, is one of the most popular governors in the United States, winning his 2022 election by a landslide against a Trump-backed Republican. He is an outspoken supporter of abortion rights and has won three statewide elections in Pennsylvania. His speaking style has drawn comparisons to former President Barack Obama. But he has been criticized by the left for his support of Israel’s war against Hamas, a voucher program for private schools and natural gas infrastructure.
His allies argue that he would aid Harris win Pennsylvania, complicating or even blocking Trump’s path to an electoral college majority.
Like all other candidates, Shapiro has dodged questions about the vetting process and stressed that Harris should not be pressured, although he has mentioned more than once that he has known her for nearly two decades.
Beshear stands out in a heavily Republican state. During his weekend stay in Georgia, he talked about winning votes in “difficult districts,” but at the same time emphasized his liberal credibility: “I am a proud pro-union governor. I am a proud pro-choice governor. I am a proud pro-public education governor. I am a proud pro-diversity governor.”
Beshear, who is the closest Democratic candidate in age to JD Vance, openly mocks Trump’s surrogate for presenting himself as a son of Appalachia. “I mean, there’s a county in Kentucky that JD Vance says he’s from – and I won it by 22 points last November,” he said.
Beshear and Shapiro, like Harris, both served as attorneys general before becoming governors. However, their tenures barely overlapped with Harris’s service in California. During his time as attorney general, she worked more closely with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. But Cooper said Monday that he had decided not to be considered for the vice presidential post.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, is a darling of some progressives. He has an atypical resume in national politics: Before entering politics, he was an Army sergeant, a public school teacher and a high school state championship football coach. Before being elected governor, he was one of the last white Democrats in Congress, representing a predominantly rural, small-town district – a striking contrast to Harris, the Bay Area Californian.
“She’s going to make the best choice she can make,” Walz said on CNN on Sunday, a day after Trump held a mass rally in St. Cloud, Minn. “Either way, she’s going to win in November, and that’s going to benefit everybody,” Walz said, including “many of the people who were with the (former) president in St. Cloud.”
Kelly, 60, is the only front-runner in Congress. He has an impressive military resume and experience as an astronaut, mighty local support among Latinos and solid relationships with officials in Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border. That balance could give him credibility on immigration policy, as Republicans portray the high number of migrants crossing the border as a national crisis.
But Kelly had to shore up his credibility with labor, a key Democratic faction. He faced criticism from union leaders for being one of the few Democrats not to support the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize. He said at the time he supported the goals but had concerns. After pressure this month, he now says he would vote for the bill if it came to a vote.
Everyone has an opinion
As Harris weighs her decisions, everyone seems to have an opinion.
Steven Benjamin, the White House director of public engagement, laughed as he told reporters on Air Force One on Monday that his office had received thousands of recommendations from across the country.
Donna Brazile, who ran Democrat Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and was instrumental in pushing Biden to choose Harris in 2020, said there was “a lot of noise” in the selection process that downplayed the complexity of the decision.
“The most important step is what the lawyers are going to do with you,” she said with a laugh, stressing how solemn the matter is. “This is worse than a dental hygiene exam. … Before they get into suitability and other factors, before they get into political people like me, they have done a forensic examination of your life.”
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Barrow reported from Cumming, Georgia. Associated Press reporters Will Weissert in Washington; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; and Colleen Long aboard Air Force One contributed.
