Kamala Harris was due to reveal her running mate on Tuesday, only three months before the presidential election, before embarking on a five-day tour of America’s most competitive battleground states.
Since replacing Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, the US vice president’s campaign has exploded, shattering funding records and wiping out Republican competitor Donald Trump’s advantage.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democratic rising star, is considered the front-runner to join Harris as her vice-presidential nominee, ahead of five other state governors, a US senator, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
According to US media reports, Harris has limited one of her most important political choices to Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and will most likely make her selection public in a video announcement.
Less than a day before their swing state trip, Harris kept fans guessing about her running mate, informing them via text message Monday evening that “I have not made my decision yet.”
Harris, 59, and her newly appointed deputy will hold a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia on Tuesday before touring Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, Arizona on Friday, and Nevada on Saturday.
She also planned events in battleground states North Carolina and Georgia on Thursday and Friday, but local media sites reported that these had been postponed due to a tropical storm hitting the southeastern states. The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for specifics.
Shapiro is extremely popular in Pennsylvania, the largest of the six or seven swing states that have determined recent US elections, and is viewed as giving Harris an advantage in what is considered must-win territory for both Democrats and Republicans.
The 51-year-old would be the country’s first Jewish vice president, adding to the diversity of a ticket that already includes the only woman ever sent to the Oval Office.
His backing for Israel and handling of pro-Palestinian rallies has provoked a leftist response, and Democrats want to ensure that their mid-August convention in Chicago is not tarnished by progressive and anti-Israel protesters.
Hard fight
Shapiro’s supporters have stated that the criticism is based on anti-Semitism, and many experts feel that his moderate stance wins him more votes from the center than it loses to the progressive extreme.
Walz, a 60-year-old former National Guard officer with a folksy appeal, would provide a rural Midwestern perspective to the ticket but is perceived as belonging to the liberal half of the party.
In recent weeks, he has established himself as one of the Democrats’ most successful communicators, with his critique of Trump and running mate J.D. Vance as “weird” finding significant resonance.
Other less likely candidates are Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and war veteran; Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Harris’ longtime buddy; and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Harris put her hat in the ring and began looking for a running mate after 81-year-old Biden dropped out of the campaign on July 21.
He had been facing rising concerns about his low popularity ratings and elderly age, but Trump was surging after surviving an assassination attempt and presided over a united party at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Multiple recent polls have shown Harris’s climb continuing unabated since, with a Morning Consult survey putting her four points ahead of Trump nationally, 48 to 44%.
However, a new CBS News poll revealed Harris’s support among Black voters to be significantly lower than Biden’s when he defeated Trump in 2020, prompting several prominent Democrats to warn against complacency.
“She has a lot of momentum, but if you do look at the polling, this is still a really tight race,” Barack Obama’s one-time strategist David Axelrod told political outlet The Hill. “This is going to be a hard fight for either side.”