Democrats in Array

Wow. What a year this past month has been.

After weeks of Democrats in Actual Disarray, the 2024 race was basically reset with the announcement yesterday that Joe Biden would be stepping aside and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place. (If you’re only learning this now, I’m going to have to recommend you get additional news sources.)

To the credit of the Democrats, it seems now that some of the delay behind Biden’s decision was the result of some careful organizing to make sure the baton was passed as cleanly as possible. A deluge of high-profile endorsements quickly followed the president’s press release, and the rank and file of the party has signaled its support with a staggering fundraising haul as well. Not even a professional spoiler like Joe Manchin wants to challenge Harris for the role now, which suggests this change in candidates will go off fairly smoothly.

The best metric for measuring the impact of this change, however, is the howling reaction from Republicans. They’ve already resorted to bizarre arguments that it’s somehow illegal for the Democrats to change their nominee a month before they’ve formally selected one. (It isn’t. Not remotely.)

And when that failed, they resorted to whining that the change just wasn’t “fair” because the Republicans had already set their hearts on running a campaign against the president and they already spent all this money on some not-remotely-pathetic “Let’s Go Brandon” flags for their yachts.

They’ll switch from self-pity to full-blown attacks soon enough, though. Trump has already set up a complaint that Harris will be an “illegitimate candidate” — because, after all, the Democratic Party doesn’t get to decide its candidate; Trump does! — which is just a slight variation on his original claim to fame, arguing that Barack Obama was an “illegitimate candidate” as well.

And this is where the Republicans just won’t be able to help themselves, as a base that has become increasingly misogynistic and racist in recent years — led by a candidate who couldn’t even stick to a “unity” script for his acceptance speech — will ramp up the ugliness to levels we can’t even imagine right now. But that ugliness will only drive away swing voters, I suspect.

Anyway, back to the Democrats.

For all the useless speculation and West Wing fan fiction we’ve seen in recent weeks imagining some sort of “blitz primary” carried out on television chat shows or a wild contested convention we haven’t seen in my lifetime, there’s finally something to speculate about — who Harris will tap as a running mate.

Given the traditional practice of “balancing” a ticket and the unwarranted-but-real jitters in some corners about having one woman on the ticket, much less two, Harris’ running mate will almost certainly be a white man. (I know, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is my favorite too, but that’s not happening.)

And given the understandable reluctance to give up a Senate or House seat, it’ll almost certainly be a governor. (Or maybe a Cabinet member like Pete Buttigieg, but my money is on a governor who could actually put a state in play.)

From that narrowed list — in which the interests of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion winnow the field down to just white men — there are a couple that stand out to me.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper are both interesting candidates that would provide some energy on the campaign trail and help shore up Democratic chances in key swing states. Either one would be a great pick, though I lean strongly to Shapiro as I’ve been able to watch him fairly closely from the next state over.

After that, some potential picks that would be good but not great. Kentucky Governor Andy Bashear is terrific, but his state isn’t in play and personally I’d love to see him run for Senate there. Colorado Governor Jared Polis is another contender, though I’d say the same for him. California Governor Gavin Newsom is a good surrogate on TV, but there’s no way they go with two Californians.

So … Harris-Shapiro, Harris-Cooper? We’ll see.

Whatever it is, this campaign seems to have completely reset and, for Democrats, reset for the better in every way. Buckle up.