When then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and gifted then-Vice President Kamala Harris the nomination, it was assumed by many that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would be her running mate.
To this day, I think that if Harris had chosen him, the 2024 election could have been much closer, if not an outright win for the Democrats.
Harris went a different route, however, choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, but it turns out that neither Walz nor Shapiro was her first choice.
You have to remember, when the race was underway, we were seeing anti-Israel protests breaking out at college campuses all around the country.
Jews were not exactly the favorites of progressives in that moment, but I still thought that Shapiro would have been the most impactful choice for Harris.
As momentum within the party grew for Shapiro, progressives started to speak out, to the point where 50 prominent leaders on the left offered Harris suggestions other than Shapiro.
With the protests getting national headlines, the liberal leaders pleaded, “With the compressed timeline ahead of us to defeat the Trump-Vance-MAGA threat, we simply cannot afford any setbacks.”
The Harris camp played things pretty tight to the vest, but it appeared that Walz came out of left field when the Democratic Party nominee made her announcement.
Harris touted Walz’s background, including the fact that while he was a gun owner, he also "believes that Congress must do more to tackle gun violence in our communities."
Walz responded, "It is the honor of a lifetime to join @kamalaharris in this campaign. I'm all in."
So, you had a word salad chef and someone prone to telling lies sitting atop the ticket, and all they did was drop in the polls from the moment they joined forces.
It turns out, Harris didn’t want Tim, and she didn’t want Josh, but did she want Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg but she thought that the country was not ready to handle a gay man and a Black woman on the same ticket.
Harris wrote, “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, ‘Screw it, let’s just do it.’ But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that -- to our mutual sadness.”
She described Buttigieg as a “sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them.” She added, “I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”
Ironically, it could now be Buttigieg who derails any chance Harris has of becoming president, as he is hot on her heels in most 2028 polls, if not beating her, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom making some big moves as well. I still don’t see any way Harris can repair her image sufficiently to ever be taken seriously again as a presidential candidate.
