Kamala Harris offered a possible hint about the identity of her choice of running mate when she announced that her first rally with her new pick will be in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Her choice of Pennsylvania’s City of Brotherly Love triggered speculation that she has plumped for the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro.
Shapiro is one of the top contenders being vetted by the vice president’s campaign team and, perhaps more importantly, Pennsylvania is a swing state with a vote that is crucial to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
It has 19 electoral votes, one of the biggest prizes in the country, and polls are showing that support for Harris and Donald Trump is evenly divided in the Keystone state.
Shapiro, 51, who comes from the Philly suburbs, has already been touring the state in support of Harris, and a Fox News poll put his favorability rating at 61 percent, with just 32 percent unfavorable. An added bonus was that three in ten Trump supporters said they liked him.
On Monday, Shapiro appeared with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at a Harris rally in the Philadelphia outskirts. On Tuesday, he called the vice president a “tough-as-nails prosecutor.”
Shapiro easily won his gubernatorial race in 2022. He wouldn’t be drawn on the veepstakes outcome, 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.”
The Harris presumptive ticket will be hitting seven swing states in four days, going from Philadelphia through western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, Savannah, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
While Washington was abuzz with speculation over Shapiro as the big winner in the veepstakes, a Harris aide told Politico not to read too much into the rally timetable.
Asked if she had decided on Tuesday, Harris told reporters: “Not yet.”
Sen. Mark Kelly, a top contender, hails from another swing state, Arizona, and the campaign insists that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are still in the running.
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