It’s a foregone conclusion at this point that Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be the Democratic nominee for president.
What isn’t certain is who she’s going to select as her running mate.
On Sunday, Newsmax journalist Mark Halperin posted a message on the social media platform X that showed a picture of Harris and a man who has been named as a leading candidate for the job — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
Halperin — who broke the news that President Joe Biden was dropping out of the race — accompanied the photo, which shows Harris smiling at Shapiro as he speaks, with the word “Developing …”
Shapiro would seem to make a solid choice for Harris from a pure electoral voting perspective. He’s the governor of a battleground state that will be critical in determining who wins the November presidential election.
He’s also a popular governor that has a high job approval rating in that state, having won the governorship by a wide margin when he ran two years ago.
At the same time, there are some major concerns that would come with Shapiro if Harris were to select him.
Shapiro been accused of covering up instances of sexual harassment in his office in the past. The Gateway Pundit also reported that he’s been accused of receiving funds for his 2022 gubernatorial campaign through an illegal scheme that involved the Democratic Governors Association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
Some well-known and outspoken liberals have already jumped on the possibility, saying it would be a bad idea for Harris to select Shapiro. One of those people is Michael Moore, a filmmaker who’s very progressive.
On Monday, Moore published a post on Substack that said picking Shapiro as her running mate could ultimately cost Harris votes in another key battleground state — MIchigan.
In the post, Moore specifically referred to Shapiro’s stance on Israel, writing:
“If Vice President Harris appoints Josh Shapiro as her Vice Presidential candidate, this too may result in losing Michigan. Shapiro said it’s ‘antisemitic’ for anyone to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in order to convince them to stop their apartheid behavior.
“He also cruelly compared peaceful college students to the Ku Klux Klan because they were calling for an end to the slaughter in Gaza. Actions like these will diminish the Arab American vote for Harris and depress a large swath of the youth vote throughout the country.”
As long as the war continues to rage on between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza, it’s likely to be a big sticking point in the presidential campaign — and a divisive one for some voters across the country.
Shapiro is by no means Harris’ absolute choice as running mate.
In addition to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — who like Harris unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 — Harris is reportedly considering governors from other key battleground states as her potential running mate.
That includes Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, Tim Walz from Minnesota, J.B. Pritzker from Illinois, Roy Cooper from North Carolina and Andy Beshear from Kentucky.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly has also been floated as a possibility.