Harris' running mate search nears the finish line: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, we report on how Vice President Kamala Harris' search for a running mate is nearing the finish line. Plus, senior national political reporter Jonathan Allen examines the risks of Donald Trump putting Harris' race and ethnicity at the center of the campaign.

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Harris' VP search nears the end

By Yamiche Alcindor, Julie Tsirkin and Rebecca Shabad

The vetting team for Vice President Kamala Harris has met with six potential running mates as her selection process nears its end, two sources familiar with the campaign said. 

The six contenders are:

• Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
• Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly
• Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

All of them are around the same age as Harris, 59, or younger, and most have already stumped for the vice president on the campaign trail or in media appearances since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. 

Shapiro met with Harris’ vetting team on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the meeting. The vice president was not present, the source said.

Shapiro canceled fundraisers in the Hamptons this weekend originally scheduled to raise money for his PAC, his press secretary Manuel Bonder confirmed. “His schedule has changed and he is no longer traveling to the Hamptons this weekend,” Bonder said.

Two sources familiar with the process said Kelly met with Harris’ vetting team Tuesday afternoon. Kelly missed at least two votes on the Senate floor on Wednesday from noon to 6 p.m. ET, one source said. His aide said he was “off campus.”

Pritzker sat for two Zoom interviews with Harris’ vetting team, one three-hour session on Monday and a follow-up session on Wednesday that included some questions on policies.

Walz said that Harris should pick whomever will help her win in November. 

“I’m not interviewing for anything. I just am who I am and put it out there,” Walz said.

Harris’ decision is expected by next Tuesday when she is set to appear with her choice for the first time during a battleground state tour that begins in Philadelphia, a source told NBC News. The tour next week also includes visits to western Wisconsin; Detroit; Raleigh, North Carolina; Phoenix; Las Vegas; and Savannah, Georgia.

Read more on Harris’ selection process →

Democratic divides: As the popular governor of a critical swing state, it’s clear why Shapiro has landed on Harris’ shortlist. But his record on issues related to Israel have become the centerpiece of the left’s case against adding him to the Democratic ticket.

Allan Smith and a team of NBC News reporters write that the intense scrutiny is the latest chapter in a long-running saga between factions of the party who have backed Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza and those who have staunchly opposed it. It also has rekindled a parallel fight over the rise of antisemitism at home as Shapiro, an observant Jew, has faced deeper skepticism over Israel than other leading contenders who have espoused similar views.

Read more on Shapiro’s Israel stance →

Trump's attacks on Harris' identity show he hasn’t learned his lesson

By Jonathan Allen

It didn’t take long for former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to put Vice President Kamala Harris’ race and ethnicity at the center of the campaign. 

First, Trump said at a National Association of Black Journalists convention that Harris had identified as Indian American for most of her life and then at some point “happened to turn Black.” That’s not true. Harris wrote in her memoir that her mother knew her half-Jamaican daughters would be seen “as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”

Vance, whose own children have an Indian American mother, then called Harris “a chameleon” because, he said, she has changed her position on issues. As every grade-schooler knows, a chameleon is most known for changing its color, not its policy preferences.

It’s rhetoric that carries significant risk for the GOP ticket. 

Sure, Trump can do what he did before the 2020 election and run up the score with his base voters while alienating everyone else. Here’s how that worked for him: He vastly increased his raw number of votes, adding nearly 18% compared to 2016, while Democrats’ total jumped by more than 23%. He lost Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia — all states he had won in 2016 — and the presidency. 

But beyond the object lesson he should have learned four years ago, Trump is feeding into the Democratic narrative — borrowed from his attacks on gone-from-the-ballot Joe Biden — that he is an out-of-touch old man. He sounds like Archie Bunker, a character who last appeared on television the year before his running mate was born. 

Injecting race into the debate is also more fraught when he is running against a candidate of color. Harris can choose whether, when and how to respond to Trump in ways that might be more difficult for a white candidate, who would be expected to defend members of his or her coalition or risk a backlash. Harris doesn’t have to apologize to anyone for dealing with the attacks as she sees fit.

If Harris’ response so far has demonstrated anything, it’s that she doesn’t intend to be distracted by what she termed “divisive” and “disrespectful” rhetoric from Trump. To the extent it’s useful to her, she’ll use it. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the economy, immigration, abortion or any other issue that affects voters’ lives.

If Trump is obsessed with Harris’ race and ethnicity, rather than voters’ needs, that’s a political loser — as long as she doesn’t take the bait.

That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at [email protected]

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