JULY 30, 2024
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in Atlanta. – John Basemore/AP
Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday, when she will hold her first rally with her pick in Philadelphia.
The two will then barnstorm cities in seven swing states in four days. They’ll hit western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, Savannah, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The stops will mark the first major campaign swing the presumptive ticket will make since Harris became the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee following President Joe Biden’s sudden departure from the race. The tour also underscores that the campaign believes the electoral map has expanded since Biden passed the baton to Harris.
The details of Harris and her running mate’s schedule were first shared with POLITICO by the campaign.
Harris’ decision to kick off her tour in the biggest city in Pennsylvania is sure to set off speculation about her vice presidential pick. One of the top contenders being vetted by Harris’ team is Josh Shapiro, the governor of the swing state.
If Harris chooses Shapiro as her running mate, Philadelphia would make an obvious place to roll out the news, given that he hails from the area’s suburbs. But it’s also a diverse, vote-rich city that every presidential nominee must tend to thanks to the state’s 19 electoral votes, and it’s possible Harris’ plans don’t signal anything beyond that.
A Harris campaign aide cautioned against reading too much into the first city chosen for the tour.
Harris said a decision about her No. 2 spot on ticket has not been finalized. Asked by reporters on Tuesday if she has selected her running mate, she said “not yet.”
Harris is planning to interview potential vice presidential nominees in the upcoming days, said people familiar with the vetting process and granted anonymity to speak freely. Other names in the mix include Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Shapiro said on Tuesday that he had not spoken to Harris since July 21, the day that Biden dropped out.
Shapiro has spent recent days stumping for Harris throughout Pennsylvania, a sign to many Democrats that he is trying out for the role of vice presidential nominee. He headlined a Harris rally with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Philly suburbs on Monday, touted the IRS’ free tax filing program with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday, and spoke at a Harris endorsement event with building trades unions on Friday.
After visiting a youth basketball program in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Shapiro touted Harris as “a tough-as-nails prosecutor” and knocked Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, as “not exactly off to a good start.”
Shapiro declined to answer questions about whether he would be interested in being on the ticket with Harris or if he has submitted vetting materials to her team, saying, “The vice president has a very deeply personal decision to make right now: who she wants to run with, who she wants to govern with, and who can be by her side when she has to make the toughest decisions for the American people. I trust she will make that decision on her own terms when she is ready.”
Other vice presidential candidates under consideration have been boosting Harris on television and in fundraising appeals. Walz has gone viral for calling Trump’s GOP “weird people,” while Beshear said on MSNBC that “JD Vance ain’t from here.”
While Harris’ campaign appearances next week will mark her first sustained swing through battlegrounds, she traveled to Wisconsin for a rally last week and was in Georgia on Tuesday for another rally.
Courtesy: POLITICO
