US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her newly chosen vice presidential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz embrace during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, August 6, 2024.
Credit: Reuters Photo
When Vice President Kamala Harris gathered some of her closest advisers in the dining room of the Naval Observatory Saturday, they had more choices than time.
Her team had just wrapped up the fastest, most intensive vetting of potential running mates in modern history, a blitz of paperwork and virtual interviews that had concluded only Friday. The advisers were there to present their findings on a list that still technically ran six deep to Harris, who had less than 72 hours to sift through it to make her final decision.
One by one, the circle of her most trusted confidants ran through the pros and cons of each possible No. 2. The sessions went long enough to be broken up with sandwiches and salads as the team eventually focused on the three men she would meet the next day for what would prove to be pivotal in-person interviews: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Polls had been conducted. Focus groups had been commissioned. Records reviewed. And the upshot, Harris was told, was this: She could win the White House with any of the three finalists by her side.
It was the rarest of political advice for a political leader at the crossroads of such a consequential decision. And for Harris, a vice president who had spent much of her tenure trying to quietly establish herself without running afoul of President Joe Biden, the advice was freeing rather than constricting.
She could pick whomever she wanted.
On Tuesday, she did just that, revealing Walz as her running mate after the two struck up an easy rapport in a Sunday sit-down at her residence, forming a fresh partnership that will define the Democratic Party in 2024 and potentially beyond. The story of how Harris came to pick Walz was told through conversations with about a dozen people involved in the selection process, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe deliberations and discussions that were intended to remain private.
For Harris, it was an instinctive reaction to an instant connection rather than a data-driven exercise that many had expected would elevate Shapiro, the popular governor of Pennsylvania, the nation's most important battleground state. But her team's polling did not suggest that either Shapiro or Kelly would bring a decisive advantage to their crucial home states.
"She wanted someone who understood the role, someone she had a connection with and someone who brought contrast to the ticket," said Cedric Richmond, a former White House adviser who was part of Harris' selection team.
Shapiro had privately appeared more circumspect about the vice presidency, according to multiple people familiar with the selection process, asking about his role and responsibilities. Shapiro, 51, is widely seen as harboring his own presidential ambitions, which could have complicated any relationship where his chief job would be to serve as a dutiful No. 2.
In contrast, Harris would later describe Walz -- who explicitly told her not to pick him if he could not help her win -- as "joyful" and willing to do anything for the team.
"He's just so open," Harris marveled privately after her meeting with Walz, according to one person with knowledge of her comments. "I really like him."
Appearing Tuesday in Philadelphia at his first rally, Walz said at several points that Harris had infused joy into her campaign, reinforcing the idea that both of them want this race to feel invigorating and not like a white-knuckled slog to November.
"Thank you, Madam Vice President," Walz said in his opening remarks. "Thank you for bringing back the joy."
The Shadowy Democratic Mini-primary
Harris, who had been a presidential candidate for only two weeks and two days when she made her choice, sought input from a range of party leaders, including Biden, former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Clintons saw Harris at a funeral in Texas last week and have stayed in regular touch, according to two people familiar with their conversations. Obama has also been an informal adviser.
From the start, Harris had been looking to balance the ticket just as she had four years ago. She is a history-making Black and South Asian woman from coastal California. The final shortlist was composed entirely of white men, most of them from the nation's interior.
Harris had bypassed a Democratic primary race, securing the nomination almost seamlessly and instantly after Biden stepped aside. But in some ways the vice-presidential sweepstakes had played out as a primary in miniature: progressives lining up with the folksy Walz and his liberal accomplishments in Minnesota, while pragmatists drooled over Shapiro's soaring approval ratings and Kelly's sterling astronaut-turned-senator resume.
Shapiro was a favorite of many insiders, with a rhetorical flourish reminiscent -- some say too reminiscent -- of Obama. Kelly was battle-tested in a Sun Belt swing state, campaigning comfortably in a fighter-pilot jacket affixed with the Navy and NASA seals.
By comparison, Walz had just burst onto the scene by coining the party's latest catchphrase, calling Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, "weird."
Bakari Sellers, a Democratic strategist who is close to the Harris operation, said there was an advantage in avoiding political risk.
"There is something to be said for 'do no harm,'" Sellers said of the Walz selection. Jamal Simmons, Harris' former communications director as vice president, called Walz "cuddly" on CNN.
Republicans were gleeful that Harris had bypassed Shapiro, and they quickly sought to tag Walz as a left-winger from Minnesota, circulating images of unrest in the state after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. "Tim Walz will unleash hell on Earth!" the Trump campaign wrote in a fundraising email.
But Harris and her advisers saw strengths in Walz's low-profile biography, according to people close to the process. They believed he had potential appeal to the blue-wall states that are at the center of her presidential bid. He is a veteran who served in the Army National Guard, a former football coach, a hunter and a gun owner, and someone who once won a House seat in a district carried by Trump.
As a high school teacher in the 1990s, Walz sponsored a gay-straight alliance and has said it was important at that time for the sponsor to be "the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married." When he won his House seat in 2006 in a conservative district, he ran on support for same-sex marriage.
To Harris and her advisers, his biography all but amounted to an appealing checklist: "Governor. Veteran. Coach. Teacher," Jen O'Malley Dillon, the campaign chair, wrote on social platform X. "Winner."
Weighing and Whittling the Field
Harris and Walz do not have an extensive history together. But Walz did join her on her trip to an abortion clinic in Minnesota in March -- the first such visit by a sitting vice president -- where she praised him as a "great friend and adviser."
"We have to be a nation that trusts women," Harris said that day.
Harris is expected to make abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign against Trump, and Walz has his own reproductive story, describing how he and his wife, Gwen, went through in vitro fertilization before having their daughter.
"We named her Hope," Walz said in Philadelphia.
As Harris was deliberating, she saw something else, too: an affable potential governing partner with deep relationships on Capitol Hill and in statehouses nationwide. Walz serves as chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
"It says to the heartland of America, 'You're not a flyover zone for us -- we're all together in this,'" Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, said in a brief interview Tuesday. She said she had not spoken with Harris during the process, though she hailed the outcome: "House members are thrilled."
Shapiro, Walz and others campaigned hard for the post, in public and private.
Shapiro and Walz called Democratic members of Congress and other influential stakeholders, including Randi Weingarten, the influential head of the American Federation of Teachers. Weingarten relayed to the Harris team that her labor union, which has at times had disagreements with Shapiro, would support whomever she would pick.
While Shapiro and Walz were cordial about each other, their allies were less polite.
Progressive Democrats who wanted Walz to be the pick debated the appropriateness of labeling Shapiro "Genocide Josh," an epithet some in the discussion viewed as antisemitic given that he has had nothing to do with American foreign policy toward Israel, and circulated his decades-old and since-disavowed college writings about the Middle East. Shapiro's supporters dismissed Walz as someone who would not deliver any state to bring Harris closer to the White House.
Going into the weekend, Harris' choice was anything but a foregone conclusion.
On Friday, a small group of her allies conducted pre-interviews with a group of six finalists. The questioners included Marty Walsh, who had served as Biden's labor secretary; Richmond, a campaign co-chair; Tony West, Harris' brother-in-law; Dana Remus, a former White House counsel; and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
The finalists included Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, and two other Democratic governors: Andy Beshear of Kentucky and JB Pritzker of Illinois. During those interviews, vetting materials, which included questions on everything from past political decisions to details on their personal lives, were reviewed with the candidates. At one point in his interview, Walz volunteered that he had never previously used a teleprompter, according to one person involved in the process.
The content of those interviews became the grist for presentations that a wider group of advisers delivered to Harris on Saturday.
In high-stakes situations like these, people who know Harris said, the vice president has long tended to pepper her advisers with questions. It is not uncommon for her to spend time deliberating before returning to her advisers with a fresh set of queries.
Nathan Barankin, who served as Harris' top aide in the Senate and as her chief deputy attorney general in California, said the truncated timeline had worked to her benefit.
"Having unbounded time can lead to analysis paralysis," Barankin said. "There is nothing about this campaign that can tolerate that."
Critical moments came Sunday, when Harris met Shapiro, Kelly and Walz in separate interviews at the vice president's residence.
'Let's Do This Together'
Three people close to the selection process said that it had clearly come down to Walz and Shapiro after the Sunday interviews. Later that day, Harris had a debriefing with the same advisers whom she had met with Saturday about her impressions.
Shapiro was described as asking more questions about his role and what his powers and authority would be as vice president. And compared with the others, he seemed less certain about taking the position.
Later Sunday, Shapiro made a follow-up call, according to two people familiar with the conversation, to ask further questions of a Harris adviser.
The finalists got little word Monday from the vice president and had to pass the time as the Harris team raced to prepare for a multistate tour beginning Tuesday with a yet-to-be-revealed running mate.
Shapiro shot hoops in his driveway as cable news cameras rolled. Kelly and his wife, Gabby Giffords, who stayed in the nation's capital even as the Senate was out of session, decided to head to the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles International Airport, according to a person briefed on their schedule. Walz went to a fundraiser in Minneapolis.
"He knew that the conversations had gone well," said Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, who spoke to the governor at that event. "But, you know, you don't know until you know."
Around 10 a.m. Tuesday, Walz, dressed in khakis and wearing a camouflage baseball hat, took a call from Harris -- he had missed her initial call because it came from a blocked number, one person familiar with the call said -- and she asked if he would be her running mate. "Let's do this together," she said. Walz accepted.
Seven hours later, and with only three months to go until the election, the new pair strode onstage together, waving to a crowd of thousands in Philadelphia.
"We've got 91 days," Walz said. "My God, that's easy. We'll sleep when we're dead."