Consider This from NPR - Who will Vice President Kamala Harris pick to be her running mate?

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris has a little over a week to pick a running mate to join her on the presidential ticket. The list of possibilities is long, but many have a couple of things in common — the represent swing states and are white, straight men — qualities that might help make a winning ticket. Who should the current Vice President pick to be her running mate, and what will make that a winning choice?For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Being vice president is like being declawed, defanged, neutered, ball gagged, and sealed in an abandoned coal mine under two miles of human s**t. Why run for vice president when, frankly, I'd rather flip patties at Gettysburg? My constitutional obligation was to have a pulse. Those are some famous fictional vice presidents, Veep, Selina Myers, Jake Ballard from Scandal, and John Hoynes from the West Wing. Although those fictional VPs were not too happy in their roles, being vice president is a job that every politician wants because, you know, sometimes the president

suddenly announces he won't run again and the vice president becomes the party's presidential nominee. All jokes aside, the role of vice president has become more and more important in recent decades. It's gone from the kind of gross image of a pitcher that Vice President John Nance Gardner once described it as, to often a key governing partner in an administration. And in a close election, the pick provides a way to balance a ticket and appeal to voters. And there is no shortage of people who are being touted as potential vice presidents for Vice President Kamala Harris. Democratic governor of the state of Kentucky, Andy Beshear.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Transportation Secretary and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. And Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. For the next few minutes, though, we are going to focus on three men who are largely seen as the top contenders. There's Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. It flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm over Iraq and Kuwait. By the time I met Gabby, I had already flown my first two flights on the space shuttle. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

No matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love or who you pray to, you have a place here in Pennsylvania, and I will always, always have your backs. Always. And North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. When I go home to Nash County, it's the same streets I rode my bike on as a kid. Our farm that I worked on is still there. So is the field where I played football, and the school where my mom was a teacher. They are all white, straight men, something conventional wisdom suggests might benefit a Harris ticket.

They also all represent important swing states in this election, and states where Trump seems to be ahead according to recent polls. Consider this. Vice President Kamala Harris now has to choose her own vice president. Who is the person who can best position

this ticket for victory? From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Consider This from NPR. De facto Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has to choose a running mate by August 7th. And the list of possible VPs is long and speculation about that final choice is rampant. We are going to spend the next few minutes talking specifically about a few of the top contenders, as well as what Harris seems to generally be looking for as she looks for a running mate. And to do that, I am joined by Bloomberg congressional reporter Jonathan Tamari. Hey, Jonathan.

Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me. Arizona Republic reporter Ronald Hanson. Hey, Ronald. Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me. And WUNC political reporter Colin Campbell. Colin, thanks for joining us. Hey, Scott. So, Jonathan, I feel like I should point out that this roundtable of reporters seems to look an awful lot like the list of candidates that Kamala Harris is considering. That's because there seem to be a few specific political goals, immediately political goals, that the Harris campaign is trying to accomplish. Generally,

what is Harris seem to be looking for in a running mate? So she's looking for balance, and that means a lot of different things. First off is probably ideological balance. She is from one of the most liberal states in the country. And so I think she's going to be looking for somebody who's maybe, based on the list we have so far, people who have appealed in swing states and can appeal to moderate voters, have a history of doing that. Probably looking for some balance in terms of identity. You know, her list is very heavy on if she's going to be a groundbreaking president on having someone who's a white man who's more conventional in our history as her vice president. And then she's looking based on the list you have here, people who have

won in battlegrounds or in and around battlegrounds, people who have won even in some conservative states. And let's start talking specifically, Ronald, I'm going to start with you in Arizona and former combat pilot, former astronaut, current Senator Mark Kelly, who definitely has the most intriguing biography of all the people on this list. What do we need to know about Mark Kelly? Yeah, I think it begins with that biography. One other line to add perhaps is his wife is former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was a survivor of He was the spouse standing by his wife when she was grievously wounded. He was a spokesman for gun control efforts in the wake of all that. Then he became a U.S. senator. He took the seat that had belonged to John McCain until his death in 2018. And because he was completing that term for Senator McCain, he had to not just win in 2020, but he had to run for reelection again in 2022.

So he's been twice vetted by voters in a swing state. And that seems to have some appeal or at least suggest some possibility that he has appeal in a place that it's not an easy run for a Democrat. You look at all the polls for the past year, and there's a lot of voter concern about immigration. That's a political weak spot for the Biden-Harris administration. Vice President Harris has played a high-profile role in that issue. So there's been a lot of attention on how Kelly thinks and talks about immigration. What do we need to know about his immigration policies? Two things probably stand out. Number one, he has called the southern border a crisis. That's his word. That is not the most

supportive language, to put it mildly, of a democratic administration. But it was, I think, an acknowledgement of the reality on the ground. It was also a political imperative for his own reelection in 2022. He has been critical of the administration as it relates specifically to the border. Let's talk about North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper for a little bit. Colin, if you want to save a listener a Google, what should somebody know about Roy Cooper, about his background, about his time as governor? So Cooper is wrapping up his second term as governor.

He's term limited, so wouldn't be running again this year. Prior to that, he spent 16 years as the state's attorney general. That's where he got to know Kamala Harris. When she was the attorney general out in California, they worked together on some initiatives. Prior to that, he was in the legislature for a number of years. Actually, he's been in elected office since 1986. He's a small town attorney from Eastern North Carolina, very much a creature of politics here in North Carolina Democratic Party, but has been very successful at the state level in ways that Democrats have not on the presidential ticket. In 2020,

he won his race by four and a half percent. Biden lost the state by about one percentage point. So as Democrats are looking to see if they can't fix that in 2024 and win the state for the first time since 2008, they're looking at Cooper's record of electoral success and wondering, I think, whether putting him on the ticket might get them an extra couple percentage points here in North Carolina. So, Jonathan, let's go to Pennsylvania now, a state that you and I have both spent a lot of time covering. Josh Shapiro has been in politics for a long time. He's held a lot of different roles, including attorney general, including governor. What to you is the most important or most interesting aspect of his background and his biography, what he would bring in this moment? Probably the most important from an electoral perspective is that he's the most successful

politician in recent memory in the biggest swing state on the map. Pennsylvania's got more electoral votes than any other battleground, and Shapiro is undefeated. And he's somebody who has an ability to speak to many different aspects of Pennsylvania, which also reflect a lot of the different aspects of a lot of battlegrounds. And so that's the most important political aspect he brings. All right, let's end this by covering our bases. Let's do kind of a lightning round. And I want to ask each of you which people you're thinking about that you've seen on the list that you think could be unconventional and intriguing, other than the people we focused on here? Jonathan?

Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky is intriguing just because he's won such a deep red state. But I'd be interested to see if he takes some of what's worked in Kentucky and apply that in some of the other battlegrounds. The fact that there's a Democratic governor there is remarkable. And so I think he could be a fascinating person if he ends up on the ticket. All right, Ronald, who's your dark horse veep? Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan. I think he could be a fascinating person if he ends up on the ticket. All right, Ronald, who's your dark horse veep? Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan. I think given the challenge of whether Americans will elect a woman as president, it's sort of a deal breaker that they would elect two women on the ticket. She has exactly the kind of profile that one would like to see in a ticket.

Colin, you want to go big with the dark horse? Yeah, I'd be interested to see if there's any really consideration given to the governor of Maryland. That would be a situation where you'd have two black candidates on the ticket. So I don't know if Democrats feel like they're willing to take that risk. I'm going to have a big dark horse. I haven't seen any lists anywhere. And that I always thought that if Harris somehow needed a VP, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu would be an interesting choice. Charismatic guy, knows everyone in democratic politics and spent the last few years kind of pushing for the stimulus spending. So we'll see which one of us is right or wrong. But thanks to all of you for helping fill in the background on

some of these key contenders as Harris looks to find a vice president. That was WNC political reporter Colin Campbell, Arizona Republic reporter Ronald Hanson, and Bloomberg congressional reporter Jonathan Tamari. Thanks to all of you. Thanks, Scott. Thank you. Thank you.

This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. Thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Thank you.