Vice President Kamala Harris has told top advisers that she’s looking for someone who can “balance the ticket” and serve as president if need be. She’s looking for “more of a governing partner” than an electoral boost, one person involved in the conversations told NOTUS. Effectively, “someone with executive experience at the highest level.”
The Harris campaign is not even a week old but is already advancing in making one of its most consequential decisions: who will serve as Harris’ running mate. The choice, people close to Harris say, will ultimately be hers, and there are several core qualifications she’s now weighing.
“You already hear the criticism, the ‘liberal from San Francisco.’ So I think finding balance defined in lots of different ways is going to be the key — whether it’s the geographical balance, the perception of ideological balance but comportion. A balance to their energy and approach,” said a second Democrat close to Harris. “Look, this is all going to be about vibes at the end of the day.”
Finding a running mate for a presidential candidate is typically a sacred process, shrouded by secrecy as the selected team works to comb through research, including financial disclosures, public statements, positions old and new and anything else that could unleash a scandal in the last months of the campaign.
Former attorney general and close Barack Obama adviser Eric Holder and his law firm are running point on Harris’ operation, analyzing up to a dozen contenders under consideration to join Harris on the ticket.
The process for Democrats this time around is unique. Not only is Harris a historic figure, vying to be the official first Black and South Asian woman to lead the party’s ticket, but she’s building a ticket under a tight deadline, unlike over the months in which these searches typically play out. The convention is less than a month away, and the Democratic Party has vowed to hold a virtual roll call before Aug. 7.
Two people close to the undertaking said the search committee was nearing the end of the research portion and moving quickly into political vetting and direct engagement of those they see fit to help Harris lead.
Out of the many names that have been floated and confirmed, multiple sources tell NOTUS that the real-life top contenders include Govs. Josh Shapiro, Roy Cooper, Andy Beshear, Gretchen Whitmer and Tim Walz, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly.
While Shapiro tops many pundit lists as the contender with the most electoral benefits to Harris, three sources familiar tell NOTUS that Kelly is the overwhelming favorite of the donor class — an influential group quick to put in their two cents.
“What she has to align herself with is what it would say about her and what it would say about the country,” said Donna Brazile, a longtime Democratic operative who consulted with Harris on her delegate whip count.
“It’s different when you’ve been vetted yourself. She’s likely thinking about what’s needed for the country, and in her position, she can answer that question better than most,” Brazile added.
Ultimately, all the people who NOTUS spoke with contend that it will be the vice president making the decision. Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are serving as major sounding boards who have helped her transition to the top of the ticket and done outreach to allies on their own, according to those familiar. One person described the two as the “gatekeepers” to the process.
Still, many say Harris is looking at the process from a different lens, after going through it herself exactly three years ago. The sense of gravity Harris and her team have brought to the process has surprised some Democrats.
“There’s a sense of responsibility to this generational push,” said a third Democrat close to the campaign transition. “It’s got to be someone who also will be a global leader essentially for our party for a long time in the things we stand for. I think electorally is part of it, but I’ve gotten the sense that it’s much more — there’s a sense of responsibility and weight that they have.”
In some ways, what Harris is looking for is a departure from the qualifications Biden advisers were most interested in when selecting his own running mate. Yes, Biden aides publicly and privately at the time said Biden was looking for someone who could run the country on day one if needed, due in large part to voter perceptions of his age.
“I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president from the very beginning,” Biden told reporters at a July 11 press conference.
But there was also significant weight on the ticket’s electoral prospects, after Biden said he was considering Black women to join him on the ballot, a boost to the party’s key voting bloc.
“She definitely wasn’t chosen from a position of strength,” the third Democrat told NOTUS, nodding to her failed 2019 campaign for the nomination. That’s juxtaposed with what’s happening now, where many early surveys of the new presidential race have Harris performing better than Biden had over the last month.
“Her negotiating position has definitely changed,” the Democrat said. “To how she came in, there was an effort to put as many Black women as possible in front of him that were not named Kamala Harris. And at the end of the day, what came to prevail was her previous relationship with the Bidens and his ability to have more of a relationship based on trust than he may have had with others on the list.”
Once in office, Biden aides failed to task Harris with policy items that she and her allies felt set her up for success, despite Biden portraying himself as the bridge to the next generation of political leadership. And those close to Harris feel now that she’s in the driver’s seat, she won’t repeat that history.
A person close to the vice president said, “She knows how she was utilized best and where she wasn’t utilized enough.”
They and another source close to Harris said they believe comfort will inevitably be a major factor in how she makes her decision.
“Everything that I’ve heard from the process is that she just wants somebody she’s comfortable with,” said the person. “And she’s learned that throughout this process and her being VP.”
Harris developed a strong relationship with Biden while in office, and she already has multiyear friendships with some of the people she’s considering for her own running mate. Multiple sources said that her relationship with Cooper was very “real” after years of being attorneys general together in different states.
“He brings an electoral boost, but also knows how to govern,” one of his advocates told NOTUS.
And her relationship with Kelly is strong too, due to her friendship with his wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. (“The best thing about Mark is Gabby,” one source joked.) Meanwhile, Emhoff has forged a strong friendship with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten.
But each contender brings their own plusses and minuses — Walz is favored among progressives, thought of as the sleeper candidate. Still, the choice is ultimately up to Harris, and it’s one that the once-leaky Biden campaign turned Harris campaign is trying to keep close to the chest.
“It’s not going to be much of a broad discussion,” said a Democrat with an understanding of the process. “Very few people are going to be able to tell you anything about this process.”
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Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS.