Kamala Harris’s White-Boy Summer

Maybe you’ve seen the joke permeating the internet this week, as Vice President Kamala Harris begins her 100-day campaign for president. In one variation on X Sunday, someone wrote “Kamala’s VP options” above a lineup of Chablis and Chardonnay bottles on a grocery-store shelf labeled “Exciting Whites.” Another user posted a picture of Harris and a saltine cracker, with the caption: “This will be the ticket.”

The jokes are funny because they’re true: For the first time in a long while, Democrats seem fine expressing the idea that what the presidential ticket really needs is a white guy.

Harris, a woman born to an Indian mother and a Black father, would be a history-making Democratic nominee. That’s enough diversity already, and it rules out a few top vice-presidential contenders, some in her party argue. By this logic, she’s not likely to run with another woman (sorry, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer) or another politician of color (see you in 2028, Governor Wes Moore of Maryland).

The conventional wisdom tells us that Harris will be looking for a running mate with experience in elected office, but ideally, a lawmaker who is also relatively new to the national political scene. She comes to the top of the ticket with a lot of political baggage, given her association with President Joe Biden, the thinking goes, so her partner should be fresh.

Above all, strategists say, Democrats are looking for a VP who appeals to the white working class—to help her win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—which would mean a skilled politician of Irish or perhaps Italian origin. A diversity hire, if you will. Someone named Andy, perhaps, or Mark.

A handful of prominent Democrats who fit the bill have already been asked to submit vetting materials, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump political strategist and the publisher of The Bulwark, and David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, walked me through a few of the options.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro

Right now, the 51-year-old governor seems to be Harris’s top contender. As she did in California, Shapiro served as his state’s attorney general; the two have known each other for years. Shapiro became governor in 2023 after campaigning hard on abortion rights, defeating the far-right Trump endorsee Doug Mastriano by almost 15 points. He is a talented public speaker, with diction and mannerisms so Obama-esque that they almost seem studied. “He’s got the stuff,” Longwell told me. “You watch him up close, he’s a pitbull, like [Harris].”

Thanks in part to his quick accomplishment of a major infrastructure project, Shapiro has enjoyed a consistently high approval rating among Pennsylvania voters. “He would give you maybe the most help in winning the most important state,” Axelrod said. “Generally, if you win Pennsylvania, you do well in the other Midwest industrial states.”

This spring, I talked with a group of Republican and independent women in the Philadelphia suburbs who were wavering between Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president. All of them said they wished that Shapiro was running. The governor, who has endorsed Harris for president, seems open to the idea. Still, Axelrod noted that Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been vocal in his support for Israel during its war against Hamas, “and I don’t know how that figures into the Michigan equation,” referencing that swing state’s recent anti-Israel and anti-war protests and its relatively large Arab American population.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper

The 67-year-old, who is in his second term as governor, has held elected office since 1987. Cooper has never lost an election, and in 2020, he was the only Democratic governor to win in a state that Trump also won. He appeals to moderates but has governed, mostly, as a liberal: supporting reproductive rights and criminal-justice reform.

Of all the men on the list, the North Carolina governor is probably closest to Harris. The two overlapped in their terms as state attorneys general, and Cooper has already made a few appearances with Harris on the campaign trail this year. Chemistry counts in a pick like this.

The problem, of course, is that a VP pick from a state such as North Carolina may not be very helpful for the Democratic Party in November. The Tar Heel State has fewer Electoral College votes than Pennsylvania, and the Democrats haven’t won there in a presidential contest since 2008.

But diversity-wise, Cooper could bring the right vibe. “As long as Democrats don’t get distracted with a place like North Carolina,” Longwell said, “he adds a lot.”

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona

Kelly has been a senator since 2020, but before that, he was a Navy flyer and then an astronaut, like his twin brother, Scott. An identical twin who’s been to space? “You couldn’t create a résumé like that on ChatGPT,” Axelrod told me. “You’ve got to figure [that] if a guy’s been a fighter pilot and an astronaut, that he understands pressure—and can handle it.”

A southwestern senator, Kelly has been critical of the Biden administration’s approach to security along the U.S.-Mexico border. If Kelly is somewhat hawkish on immigration control, he can appeal to the party’s progressive wing through his record as an outspoken gun-control advocate after his wife, former Representative Gabby Giffords, was permanently injured in an assassination attempt in 2011.

Kelly’s candidacy does have two obvious problems. First, the senator is not a particularly charismatic speaker. That has not hurt him and other less-than-scintillating Democrats in Arizona, but it doesn’t necessarily bode well for a national campaign. The second potential complication is that, if Harris chooses him as her running mate, Kelly would have to give up his Senate seat. Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs would then appoint a replacement, who would serve out the rest of Kelly’s term and then presumably compete in a special election in 2026.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear

Beshear seems to want it bad. In the days after Biden dropped out of the race, the Kentucky Democrat was all over TV and social media with his folksy accent and choice words for Trump’s vice-presidential pick. “Let me just tell you, J. D. Vance ain’t from here,” Beshear said yesterday in an interview on Morning Joe. “I mean, the problem with J. D. Vance is, he has no conviction, but I guess his running mate has 34,” he said in another, with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Beshear, whose father is former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, spent a few years as his state’s attorney general before being elected to its highest office in 2019. “He’s getting so much attention because his team showed that they could win in the reddest of places,” Longwell told me. “They knew how to prosecute a case on abortion and how to pick up swing voters”—skills the Harris campaign needs.

Tornadoes and severe flooding have marked Beshear’s first few years in office, giving him opportunities to show how he handles a crisis. “A lot of Americans have seen him under the most arduous of circumstances,” Axelrod told me, “and what you see on the screen is very, very clear, pronounced empathy.” Plus, Kentucky Democrats love him. He’s good-looking and relatively young for a state leader at only 46. During the coronavirus pandemic, when Beshear delivered nightly addresses to the state, people made fan fiction and memes about him.

Still, Beshear is more of a newbie than the others. And he says that, so far, no one from the campaign has asked him to send over his credentials.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

Walz is another candidate who could help Harris wrangle the Midwest. Now in his second term as governor, Walz is a former educator, congressman, and member of the Army National Guard. During his tenure, Minnesota has moved sharply to the left; the state legislature enacted several major progressive priorities, including codifying abortion rights, requiring paid leave, legalizing marijuana, and passing stricter gun laws. In his own Minnesota way, Walz has also expressed willingness to serve as VP. “She mentioned she would need my help. And I said she has it in any way that she sees fit,” he told a local reporter. “If that’s the direction she goes, I guess that’s fine.”

Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker

The 59-year-old, who became his state’s governor in 2019, has championed progressive causes during his term. But he seems most comfortable when he’s trolling right-wing politicians, including Trump himself and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

One crucial thing to know about the Prairie State governor is that he’s an actual billionaire—and America’s wealthiest elected official. The Pritzker family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and the governor has launched his own successful venture-capital start-ups. Choose him as a campaign running mate, and “your financial problems might be solved in one fell swoop,” Axelrod said. So far, though, Pritzker apparently hasn’t been asked to file paperwork with the Harris team.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor is perhaps one of the most qualified candidates to be VP. A military veteran from the Midwest with experience campaigning on a national scale, he’s held a top post in the Biden administration. In addition, he’s a solid defender of his party’s agenda, and has demonstrated a talent for tangling with conservatives on TV.

So Buttigieg is battle-tested—but he’s also gay, Axelrod noted, asking: “Is that too much diversity on the ticket?”

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer

Whitmer is probably not going to be the VP, given many Democrats’ concerns about making too much history. Still, the governor deserves mention on the outside chance that the party decides to lean in for a two-woman ticket. A self-described progressive Democrat, Whitmer was elected in 2018 after campaigning to “fix the damn roads” in Michigan. In office, she’s been a supporter of abortion rights and gun control, and has remained popular among voters. Tapping her as VP could be a major boon for Democrats who aim to win her crucial “blue wall” state.

Almost everyone expects Whitmer to run for president eventually, and running with Harris now could set her up for success in 2028. Even though the Harris campaign is reportedly considering Whitmer, she has so far shown no obvious enthusiasm for joining the race.

The good news for Democrats is that America has been cranking out white male politicians for several hundred years. If Harris is looking for a conventional running mate, she has an embarrassment of riches.

Illustration Sources: Jon Cherry / Getty; Tim Rue / Bloomberg via Getty; Mark Makela / Getty; Stefani Reynolds / Getty; Paul Natkin / Getty.