WASHINGTON: US vice-president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is interviewing potential running mates this weekend with the needle of probability ticking towards Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
In fact, there was a momentarily firestorm in political circles on Friday when the mayor of Philadelphia — Pennsylvania’s largest city — Mayor Cherelle Parker, put out a video, saying “Proud to be back with so many leaders from across our region supporting Kamala Harris for president and Josh Shapiro for VP!”
Her office later clarified the mayor was just showing her support for a longtime friend who is one of the people being considered.But local media reports said the video was made for a Monday announcement but was released accidentally and prematurely.
Shapiro remains on top of the VP nominee list because, and as the popular governor of Pennsylvania, he could swing the battleground state and its 19 electoral votes to Kamala Harris. The state has been won and lost narrow margins — it went to Trump in 2016 by 44,000 votes and to Biden in 2020 by about 82,000 votes. The winner of the popular vote, by any margin, gets all the state’s electoral votes.
Recent poll surveys show Harris trailing Trump by one or two points, within the margin of error. Shapiro won the gubernatorial race against his Republican opponent in 2022 by 15 points, attesting to his popularity.
Other indicators that Shapiro could be the one came when he cancelled several meetings over the weekend and the Kamala Harris campaign scheduled a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, after an announcement of a running mate by Monday.
Democratic governors of Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Kentucky along with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly also remain in the race. But the liberal commentariat believes that if Kamala Harris wants to sustain the momentum of her campaign and give herself the best chance to win in November, Shapiro “would make for the wisest choice.”
Shapiro, who is Jewish, would balance the ticket in ways beyond geography (California-Pennsylvania). He is a centrist Democrat and would offset criticism is some quarters that Kamala Harris is from the radical left and not well-inclined towards Israel at a very fraught time in the middle-east.
“Independent voters overwhelmingly favor Israel over Hamas, as did 80 percent of Americans…While young people, who have the lowest propensity to vote, were split on the issue, older people supported Israel 93 percent to 7 percent, and they have the highest turnout. That suggests Shapiro’s religion and his position on Israel would be a net plus for a Harris-Shapiro ticket even if it alienated the pro-Palestinian left,” the New York Times noted in an oped.
In fact, there was a momentarily firestorm in political circles on Friday when the mayor of Philadelphia — Pennsylvania’s largest city — Mayor Cherelle Parker, put out a video, saying “Proud to be back with so many leaders from across our region supporting Kamala Harris for president and Josh Shapiro for VP!”
Her office later clarified the mayor was just showing her support for a longtime friend who is one of the people being considered.But local media reports said the video was made for a Monday announcement but was released accidentally and prematurely.
Shapiro remains on top of the VP nominee list because, and as the popular governor of Pennsylvania, he could swing the battleground state and its 19 electoral votes to Kamala Harris. The state has been won and lost narrow margins — it went to Trump in 2016 by 44,000 votes and to Biden in 2020 by about 82,000 votes. The winner of the popular vote, by any margin, gets all the state’s electoral votes.
Recent poll surveys show Harris trailing Trump by one or two points, within the margin of error. Shapiro won the gubernatorial race against his Republican opponent in 2022 by 15 points, attesting to his popularity.
Other indicators that Shapiro could be the one came when he cancelled several meetings over the weekend and the Kamala Harris campaign scheduled a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, after an announcement of a running mate by Monday.
Democratic governors of Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Kentucky along with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly also remain in the race. But the liberal commentariat believes that if Kamala Harris wants to sustain the momentum of her campaign and give herself the best chance to win in November, Shapiro “would make for the wisest choice.”
Shapiro, who is Jewish, would balance the ticket in ways beyond geography (California-Pennsylvania). He is a centrist Democrat and would offset criticism is some quarters that Kamala Harris is from the radical left and not well-inclined towards Israel at a very fraught time in the middle-east.
“Independent voters overwhelmingly favor Israel over Hamas, as did 80 percent of Americans…While young people, who have the lowest propensity to vote, were split on the issue, older people supported Israel 93 percent to 7 percent, and they have the highest turnout. That suggests Shapiro’s religion and his position on Israel would be a net plus for a Harris-Shapiro ticket even if it alienated the pro-Palestinian left,” the New York Times noted in an oped.