The stunning transformation of the 2024 presidential race will reach new heights Tuesday when Vice President Kamala Harris unveils her running mate after a sequence of events that left Republican nominee Donald Trump flailing.
Harris is due to join her vice presidential pick at a rally in Philadelphia that will kick off a joint sprint across an electoral map expanded by President Joe Biden’s shelving of his own reelection bid just over two weeks ago.
In the final hours of her search after a compressed vetting period, Harris narrowed in on two candidates — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, 51, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, sources told CNN, although Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly remained in the running as of Monday afternoon. Shapiro is a rising Democratic star whose popularity in the commonwealth could be an asset to Harris in perhaps the most vital swing state. Walz is an experienced progressive leader whose profile could help shore up the midwestern blue wall states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, that may represent Harris’ best route to the Oval Office.
The theatrics will offer the vice president a fresh chance to supercharge her candidacy’s momentum, which has energized a party that had looked headed for defeat in November and tightened the contest into a 50-50 struggle in a polarized country. Her relative youth, at 59, has inverted the generational contrast with Trump, 78, now that the issue of Biden’s age and acuity in a potential second term is moot.
While the naming of the Democratic vice presidential pick is the focus of the campaign, new developments Monday — outside a race that has been on a momentous trajectory since Trump escaped an assassination attempt and Biden pulled out — hinted at potential new twists to come before November.
Economic and Middle East drama loom as Harris makes her pick
Harris’ final deliberations took place against a backdrop of fast-developing domestic and global events that reflected the complex political environment she must navigate if the novelty of her sudden elevation wears off.
A global stock market plunge, for instance, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1,000 points Monday, amid rising unemployment and revived fears of a US recession that could further sour voters on an economy that the White House insists is in great shape but that has nevertheless left millions of people feeling deeply insecure. There is no sign that the US economy faces a looming meltdown on the scale of the 2008 crisis that helped lead to the victory of Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain. The banking system appears strong, inflation has ebbed and the US has bounced back more strongly than other developed nations from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Still, in a tight election likely to be decided by a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states, any issue can be decisive. Any economic shocks in the weeks to come could prove treacherous for Harris given she’s tied to the current administration but also lacks the ability to influence factors like whether the Federal Reserve will begin to make long-awaited interest rate cuts.
Harris on Monday also had to juggle discussions on her pick with her official duties. She joined Biden in the White House Situation Room amid intense diplomacy as signs point to an Iranian retaliatory strike against Israel that would risk igniting a full-scale regional war that could drag in the United States. News that several US service members were injured in a suspected rocket attack on an air base in Iraq again underscored the many factors that are beyond the vice president’s control that could rock the race in the run-up to November. Multiple US officials told CNN that the US expects Iran to hit back for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran perhaps within a 24-hour time frame — a period that could coincide with the vice president’s plans to name her running mate.
The Middle East war has already had a significant impact on the campaign. Israel’s repeated disregard for Biden’s calls to shield civilians in its assault on Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 terror attacks has carved splits in the Democratic coalition, especially in the critical battleground state of Michigan, which is home to many Arab Americans.
The war has also loomed over Harris’ search for a running mate since Shapiro, who is Jewish, is being criticized by some on the left for comments condemning the tone of campus protests. While he has been more outspokenly critical about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than Biden has, some progressives have warned against his selection as a running mate.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss on Monday criticized a campaign from what he described as the “overly online left” against Shapiro’s possible nomination. “There’s a strong undercurrent of antisemitism to that,” the Massachusetts Democrat told CNN’s Kasie Hunt.
Trump, who has struggled to adapt his campaign to his new Democratic foe, sought to exploit both evolving crises on Monday in a way that pointed to a potentially more effective attack against Harris than his questioning of her racial identify last week. He blasted the stock sell off as a “Kamala Crash” on social media and warned World War III was beckoning.
The ex-president’s comments lacked context and were overly alarmist. But perception is often as important as reality in a presidential race. Trump is seeking to tie Harris to what he claims are Biden’s failures as he seeks to foster a sense among Americans that the country and the world are fast spinning out of control.
At the very least, the economy and Middle East instability will increase pressure on Harris to do more to counter Trump’s populist economic arguments and to flesh out how she would lead at a time when US global power is more challenged than it’s been in decades.
The choice of a running mate is the first, most critical decision a party nominee makes. They, after all, are choosing a potential commander in chief who they deem fit to serve as president should the worst happen to them.
But while the pick generates huge public interest, fundraising potential and can bolster a presidential nominee’s narrative or compensate for their liabilities, it’s been years since a vice presidential selection has been the decisive factor in winning an election.
The most important tactical consideration for Harris, therefore, may be to ensure her choice does nothing to detract from her successful rollout — either in action or by the exposure of past deeds. Any mistakes in vetting her choice could offer Trump and his campaign a chance to pick apart a poorly vetted candidacy and regain some traction.
The vice president has just witnessed an object lesson in the perils of running mate politics. Trump and his team have spent two weeks having to defend his pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, after his past reference to Democratic politicians as “childless cat ladies” contributed to the rockiest rollout of any vice presidential pick since Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. The Harris campaign will be seeking a scandal-free rollout and a triumphant swing state tour that keeps Trump off balance for another week and allows her to ride into the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on a political high in two weeks.
Tuesday’s events in Philadelphia would have been unthinkable less than three weeks ago when Biden was resisting growing Democratic efforts to push him aside after his disastrous June debate performance in Atlanta. At the time, the 2024 race — which promises sweeping consequences for America’s democracy and future path — was still reeling from the attempt to kill Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania just before he claimed his third-straight GOP nomination.
The contest for the White House had previously been shaped by Trump’s multiple legal woes, but the success of his courtroom delaying tactics and assists from conservative judges have pushed off a reckoning for his most serious alleged offenses – including his attempt to steal the 2020 election that he lost in a bid to remain in power.
Still, Harris’ strong start appears to have restored the election to a neck-and-neck race, according to recent surveys. In the latest CNN Poll of Polls, for instance, there was no clear leader nationally with Trump at 49% and Harris at 47%. But the vice president’s campaign is so new that it’s too early to judge the full impact of her entry into the race, especially without a critical mass of new swing state data.
A successful rollout of her running mate offers the prospect of another few weeks of positive vibes in a transformed race — if outside events don’t intervene.
