AUGUST 3, 2024:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats have unified with remarkable speed behind Vice President Kamala Harris as she has taken over the top of the party’s ticket heading into the November presidential election.
It may be another story when it comes to a running mate.
As Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly have emerged as among the potential finalists, both have face criticism from some organizations and activists who might otherwise be supportive of Democratic causes.
Harris’ team says she is interviewing six possible choices over the weekend before an announcement expected Monday (Aug. 5, 2024). The next day, she and her running mate will appear together at a rally in Philadelphia, then visit six more swing states.
In addition to Shapiro and Kelly, Harris is said to be considering Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Some congressional Democrats have promoted Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut whose state has more than 370 miles of border with Mexico. They say his selection could help defuse attacks by the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, who argues that Biden administration’s immigration policies are too relaxed.
Shapiro has high-profile supporters, too, including Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. She caused a stir by posting a video Friday depicting several Philadelphia-area officials and Democrats promoting Harris, but also playing up Shapiro as her running mate — appearing to suggest that the mayor had inside knowledge about Harris’ decision.
But a person with knowledge of the mayor’s thinking said the video was simply a case of Parker showing support for both Harris and the potential that Shapiro, Parker’s friend, would be the vice presidential pick. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Both Kelly and Shapiro have also seen their detractors become more vocal as Harris’ closes in on a decision.
While that may not ultimately sway Harris, it is an indication that the honeymoon period for the vice president, where the distinct wings of the Democratic Party coalesced behind her, may be ending in the less than two weeks since President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed her.
Some labor groups have criticized Kelly for opposing proposed legislation they argue would boost union organizing. Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, said that despite backing Harris for president, his 370,000-member union is not supporting Kelly as a potential running mate.
Fain also said the union does not favor Shapiro, who has previously proved willing to join with Republicans in calls to expand voucher programs that allow public tax dollars to flow to private schools.
Fain did single out Beshear, Walz and Pritzker for praise.
“She’s probably got a thousand people telling her the same thing, you know, of what they think,” Fain said in an interview. “And so she’s got to make the decision based off of what she feels is, you know, is best for her.”
The nonprofit Institute for Middle East Understanding said in a statement that Shapiro “is not the right candidate for the job, and selecting him would be a step in the wrong direction.”
Shapiro, who says he plans to be at Harris’ rally Tuesday in Philadelphia, has aggressively confronted what he views as antisemitism cropping up from pro-Palestinian demonstrations and he has professed solidarity with Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas as it Israel battles the militants in Gaza.
Shapiro called out universities for not acting quickly to tackle antisemitism and he became a prominent critic of the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Liz Magill. She resigned after testifying at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
Shapiro has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while suggesting that any end to the Israel-Hamas war requires the removal of Hamas from power.
The governor has been criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for not condemning Israel for the killing of civilians in Gaza or for not calling for Israel to stop the fighting in the territory. Shapiro has countered that he has met with Muslim Americans and understands their pain.
The progressive activist organization RootsAction.org opposes Shapiro’s views on Israel, school vouchers and the environment, among other issues. It says that in considering Shapiro, Harris “has set off alarm bells among young people, racial justice organizers, Arab Americans, Muslims and others whose votes and campaign activism were crucial to defeating Trump four years ago.”
Meanwhile, The Philadelphia Inquirer resurfaced an opinion article Shapiro wrote in 1993 as a 20-year-old college student at the University of Rochester where he said peace “will never come” to the Middle East and that Palestinians were “too battle-minded” to coexist with Israel.
Asked about it, Shapiro responded, “I was 20” adding that he long has supported a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“It is my hope that we can see a day where peace will reign in the Middle East,” he said.
Also opposing Shapiro are some environmental leaders and residents of the rural town of Dimock, Pennsylvania. They have drafted a letter to Harris urging her not to choose Shapiro and charging that the governor failed to keep his promises to clean up area groundwater contaminated by natural gas production via hydraulic fracturing.
The survey, which was conducted after President Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race and Harris became the likely Democratic presidential nominee, highlights the strengths and weaknesses that different politicians could bring to the ticket — and the challenges they could face if selected.
Kelly, while better known and liked than some of the alternatives, is still unfamiliar to about half of Americans. And others, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, while less known nationally, could draw on a deeper well of support in their home states and regions. Kelly and Shapiro are viewed among the front-runners, according to people familiar with the process, after the Harris campaign began its vetting with about a dozen names.
Harris said Tuesday she had not yet decided on her No. 2. But she, and whomever she selects, will head out on a seven-state swing of key battlegrounds, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina, next week.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly
Of the four potential Democratic vice-presidential candidates included in the poll – Kelly, Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who publicly removed himself from consideration after the poll was fielded — Kelly has the highest name recognition and favorability, according to the AP-NORC poll.
Americans are more likely to have a positive view of Kelly than a negative view. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a very or somewhat favorable view of Kelly, while about 2 in 10 have a negative view. Drawing more good feelings than bad is a relative rarity in presidential politics these days: Biden and former President Donald Trump have been viewed more negatively than positively for several years now.
Like many of the other contenders, though, Kelly is nowhere near a household name. About half of Americans don’t know enough to have an opinion about him.
But Democrats are especially likely to have warm feelings about Kelly. Forty-five percent have a favorable view of Kelly. Only about 1 in 10 have an unfavorable view of him, and around 4 in 10 don’t know enough to say. Older Democrats — those 45 and older — are especially likely to have a positive view of Kelly, while younger Democrats are more likely to be unfamiliar with him.
He’s proven to be a battle-tested campaigner, winning a special election in 2020 to flip the Arizona Senate seat from Republican control and then retaining it two years later for a full, six-year term. The Navy veteran is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and has been an influential voice among Democrats on immigration and border security, long a political vulnerability for Harris that Republicans are seeking to exploit.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Shapiro is broadly unknown to Americans and Democrats, except in the Northeast, where he has more name recognition and higher favorability. The poll found that 6 in 10 U.S. adults — including 57% of Democrats — don’t know enough to have an opinion about Shapiro. About 2 in 10 Americans view him favorably, and a similar share view him unfavorably.
The picture isn’t very different among Democrats. About one-quarter of Democrats have a positive view of Shapiro, while 16% have a negative view. Older Democrats are more likely than younger ones to have a favorable opinion of Shapiro, but overall, most have yet to develop a view.
Shapiro was elected governor in 2022, defeating Republican Doug Mastriano — a controversial figure who drew opposition and criticism from members of his own party, including then-GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.
Unlike the other contenders asked about in the AP-NORC poll, though, he’s significantly better known — and liked — in his home region. In the Northeast, 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of him. Another 4 in 10, roughly, don’t know enough to have an opinion of him, while about 2 in 10 Northeasterners view him negatively.
Democrat Gary Hines, a 68-year-old in Philadelphia, had high praise for his home-state governor and added: “I’d hate to see him leave, because he’s just getting started in Pennsylvania.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
If chosen, Beshear would need to introduce himself to most of the country. Around 7 in 10 Americans don’t know enough to have an opinion about him. Those with a view are about evenly split: 17% of U.S. adults have a positive view, and 15% have a negative one.
However, Democrats have a more positive than negative opinion of Beshear. About one-quarter have a very or somewhat favorable view, while around 1 in 10 have a negative view. Nearly two-thirds don’t know enough about Beshear to give an opinion.
The scion of a well-known Democratic family in the state, Beshear defeated then-Gov. Matt Bevin — a deeply unpopular figure, even in conservative Kentucky — then won reelection in 2023 against Republican Daniel Cameron, a longtime protégé of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Beshear’s victory last year was credited in part to his advocacy of abortion rights, including a campaign ad that featured a sexual assault survivor attacking Cameron for his stances.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
Like the other governors who are being discussed, Gov. Tim Walz doesn’t have much of a national profile — and that also means he’s a relatively blank slate. He wasn’t included in the AP-NORC poll, but a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, which asked about favorability slightly differently, found that about 9 in 10 U.S. adults don’t know enough to have an opinion on him. Among Americans with a view, opinions are split between positive and negative.
Walz, who also served for 12 years in the House, moved up on Harris’ shortlist in recent days after he coined “weird” as a new talking point to describe the Republican ticket. It’s a line now used widely by the vice president and other Democrats.
He currently leads the Democratic Governors Association.
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The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
