Kamala Harris Is Doing In-Person “Chemistry” Tests With Her Top VP Candidates

Presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is reportedly meeting with her top vice president contenders on Sunday to test how well they get on. At least three of the finalists—Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona—are scheduled to meet with Vice President Harris in what is being described as a “chemistry test,” per the New York Times.

The in-person chats are the apparent last step in the weeks-long search to choose who will join Harris on her historic 2024 ticket. The campaign has said they will announce the pick ahead of Harris’s scheduled rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. The event will mark the duo’s first combined stop before touring seven swing states in just four days, according to Politico reporting.

It’s unclear if others in the veepstakes mix—like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky—had already met with Harris or were also on the docket.

This final test is “one that Ms. Harris is expected to put considerable stock in,” the Times writes. “Aides and associates have said that she often prioritizes personal rapport with her staff and advisers.”

These more intimate meetings come after an accelerated vetting process by the Harris campaign, and information found in that process, according to one of the finalists, has been shared with the potential VPs. A kind of public vetting process has played out in media interviews, on social media, and in the halls of Congress, too.

On Friday, Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker’s team published a tweet and video that appeared to show that Pennsylvania’s governor, Shapiro, was the VP pick. At first, the video seemed like an accidental leak of insider information before Harris’s choice was made public. A source close to Parker quickly told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the mayor was showing her support for Shapiro, but wasn’t announcing anything conclusive.

While the campaign’s choice to hold its first full-ticket event in Philadelphia could be seen as an Easter egg, a Harris aide “cautioned against reading too much into the first city chosen for the tour,” Politico reported.

Shapiro’s position at the helm of a key 2024 battleground state has put him on top of the veepstakes race. The governor, 51, drew national attention in 2020 when, as attorney general, he handled then-President Donald Trump’s slew of election fraud lawsuits against the state. Plus, he’s got lots of experience winning tough elections—when he took the governor’s office, Shapiro made history by winning more votes than any Pennsylvania governor ever had.

His road to the ticket has also been filled with controversy.

The director of the National Women’s Defense League critiqued Shapiro’s handling of a sexual harassment complaint against his aide and said he “should have done a better job” in that situation. (A spokesperson told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that the governor and his administration “take every allegation of discrimination and harassment extremely seriously and have robust procedures in place to thoroughly investigate all reports.”)

Shapiro’s past views and current positions on the war in Palestine have come under intense pressure from progressives. In a 1993 article he wrote while in college, Shapiro claimed that Palestinians were “too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.” This week, he told reporters that his views have changed.

While he’s called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “one of the worst leaders of all time,” his handling of campus anti-war protests has led some progressives to worry about how he would handle the issue as the president’s close ally.

Before Walz joined public office in 2007, he was a member of the Army National Guard and a longtime school teacher and football coach. Walz’s recent uptick in national name recognition has come from conversational and blunt interviews in which the Minnesotan talks openly about his family and community. He’s spoken about his family’s use of IVF and critiqued the GOP’s attacks on reproductive care.

The Minnesota governor has been a leading advocate of calling Trump and his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, simply “weird.”