Kamala Harris Narrows Down Her VP Choices to Three

     Kamala Harris has brought a wave of new excitement to the 2024 election. Trump is running scared from a debate, the Harris campaign broke Zoom with the largest call in history, more than 100,000 volunteers have signed up in the past week, and ActBlue has raised nearly a quarter of a billion dollars this week in what is on track to be the best fundraising week in Democratic Party history.

     Adding to this excitement and this optimism is the selection of a running mate for Vice President Harris. There are a lot of great candidates, and I've highlighted many of them, including Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. As we expect a selection within the coming days, sources close to the Harris campaign have confirmed to MSNBC that the choices have been whittled down to three men: Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. 

     Notably, these are the three men I highlighted as the most likely choices a number of days ago, and they all have numerous qualifications and capabilities that would make them perfect running mates and governing partners to Vice President Harris:

     Josh Shapiro is the popular governor of Pennsylvania. He won his state by 11 points in the 2022 election, and he has managed to gain popularity even among those who have tended to vote for Donald Trump and Republican candidates. He is also Jewish, like Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and would make history as the highest-ranking Jewish American in history. Perhaps most importantly to Vice President Harris, he was the attorney general of his home state, and, like Harris as a senator from California, he built his national profile opposing the Trump administration. He is also by far the youngest of the three, which would make him a good candidate to succeed Harris.

     Mark Kelly filled the seat vacated by John Frickin' McCain in the Senate, winning an election in a state that has been home to many conservative icons of the past century; he is the first Democrat to hold the seat in 60 years. An identical twin to his brother Scott, Kelly has by far the most compelling life story of the men on this list. He served in the military for 25 years, flying missions as a naval aviator in the Gulf War. This makes Kelly the only one of the three with experience in the service. He served as an astronaut on a series of NASA missions throughout the 2000s. His wife is Gabby Giffords, a former representative who nearly lost her life in the 2011 Tucson shooting, and, after this and the shooting at Sandy Hook, she and Kelly founded a gun control group called Giffords. One disadvantage would be losing Kelly in the Senate, where he is a popular figure in a swing state, although his popularity could give Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego a leg up in the November election.

     Roy Cooper is the governor of North Carolina, another swing state that went to Donald Trump by just 1.4 percent in 2020 and one that Democrats have made winning a priority. He is currently finishing his second term, which means that he would not need to leave office to become VP, and North Carolina is also home to what is likely the most important governor's race of the 2024 election cycle. Like Harris and Shapiro, he was previously the attorney general of his home state, and he also has crucial legislative experience, serving as the Majority Leader of the North Carolina Senate from 1997 to 2001. One disadvantage is his age: at 67, he is the oldest of the three in an election where age is an issue. While he is quite clearly still sharp and more than capable to be VP, he would be 75 after serving eight years under Kamala Harris, meaning he would likely not succeed her as president.

     Each of these three men would make an amazing vice president, and there is an air of excitement about learning who she will pick, almost certainly within the next week. To support the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, click here. To support the Arizona Democratic Party, click here. To support the North Carolina Democratic Party, click here. To support Vice President Harris, click here.