Vice President Kamala Harris had better contact with the governor of Minnesota Tim Walz and considered him the preferred matching to her No. 2 – but she struggled with whether the governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro would be a more strategic choice in the campaign against Donald Trump, in the decision that came to the wire last summer.
The final deliberations are described in detail in fragments of the new book about the presidential election in 2024, which talks about the process of checking Harris in weeks after the then president Joe Biden unexpectedly resigned from the race and is subject to Harrisu with Inquirer and other sales points about how Shapiro.
»Read more: Inside Harris’s decision to cross Josh Shapiro as its vice president
Bible, 2024: As Trump confirmed the White House and the Democrats lost AmericaIt is available on Tuesday and was written by reporters of Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager from New York Times and Isaac Arnsdorf from Washington Post. The chronicle of Harris’s decision on the current partner, who eventually came down to Shapiro and Walz, and contains new details about how Shapiro’s ambition became the point of vice president.
The book is based on conversations with the campaigns of Trump, Biden and Harris and close people.
Shapiro, who, as apparently, is considering candidacy for president in 2028, is ready for re -election as Governor of Pennsylvania next year. The first democratic governor avoided many public tips that he is actively preparing for the campaign, unlike some governments of the second period or rivals who are not in the selected position. But the noise of the book contributes to his established reputation as a person with a white house in his mind.
»Read more: Josh Shapiro is used to winning. But losing on the vice president is not a failure.
Shapiro approached the choice
Shapiro was initially among the six men considered for the current partner of Harris, in accordance with the fragments of the book, a list of Walz, senator Marek Kelly (D., Ariz.), Former transport secretary of Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. All six participated in interviews with Zoom on August 2 with a panel in which he included Harris’s brother -in -law, Tony West; Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.); former US representative of Cedric Richmond (D., La.), former adviser Biden; and former secretary of the Labor Party Marta Walsh.
Harris, with a contribution from the panel, eventually passed the list to Shapiro and Walz.
“On the paper of many Democrats, Shapiro was an obvious choice,” the authors wrote, noting that he was a person whose Trump campaign was the most feared.
“He was a popular Governor of Pennsylvania, who saw both campaigns as the most important state of the battlefield,” wrote the authors. “He was young, fifty-one, and reduced the moderate profile-a helpful counterweight to the perception of Harris as a radical liberal in California, that Trump’s campaign willingly put on a house.”
Shapiro’s speaking skills were also convincing and “in the form of Barack Obama”, the authors wrote, although some democrats thought that he sounded like he “to the parody point”.
What put up at the top
Walz, a veteran and a former football coach, was favored by a panel coming out of the interviews of the zoom. Harris invited Walz, Shapiro and Kelly to his residence for personal interviews the next day, August 3.
“The pitch to Walz was simple: he could refer to white voters in the States of Blue Wall … and I hope that Harris with voters. He never lost the election,” the authors wrote.
His folk style contrasted with Shapiro asking for drinks during their interviews. Shapiro asked for water. Walz asked for dietary dew.
Harris already had reservations about whether the origin of Shapiro was too similar to her, because they are both former general prosecutors.
And, according to the book, their interview with one “revealed that they were not a perfect match.”
Shapiro “became too ambitious”, the authors say “pushing Harris to define his role. He also admitted that it would not be natural, that he served as someone’s number two, leaving Harris a bad impression.”
Meanwhile, Walz did not show interest in applying for the president and had a much more modest work field, at some point admitting that he was annoyed with a debate and suggesting that Harris could instead recognize a stronger debater.
And on Sunday evening, the day after an interview, Shapiro called Harris’s helpers and expressed his own reservations, saying that he was not sure if he was ready to leave his work as Governor of Pennsylvania.
“Harris was embarrassed when she was informed about the call,” according to the book.
“Shapiro seemed to want Harris to be invested in his success just like him, and he did not say that he was not potentially interested in the presidential candidate in the future.”
Despite this, Harris struggled with the final decision, wondering if Shapiro was a more strategic choice to defeat Trump. Without a survey, to prove that the feeling eventually went with the intestine and announced Walza in the morning from the campaign to present her choice.
Shapiro helped the campaign to find a PA farm. For Walz after canceling the initial location
Rally announced Walz took place on August 6 at the Lacouras Center, Philadelphia, where Shapiro took hours on stage after he found out that he was handed over as a vice president.
He still stopped Harris and helped the campaign behind the scenes, in one case only a few weeks later.
According to the book, the Harris campaign reached Pennsylvania Family Farm about the organization of the campaign event with the “Governor” at the beginning of September.
The family accepted, but the day before the event, when the bands arrived there, they discovered that this event with Walz, not Shapiro, and withdrew. The Shapiro team helped Harris’s campaign to find another farm to host Walz, according to the book.
Walz visited Cherry Hill Orchards in Lancaster on September 4, posing for photos and buying Whoopie and Apple Donuts during a visit with his daughter, both sports camouflage hats.
“This is not a hyperbola to say that these elections can depend very well on this unit here, including the field office here and the people we leave,” he told the crowd of supporters in the basement of the main headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Ferrity in Lancaster that day.
He and Harris would lose Pennsylvania with Trump and vice president of JD Vance by 1.7 percentage points.
