Kamala Harris’ Puzzling VP Pick
What makes the choice more puzzling the same is true of Vance is that there were other candidates who probably check off any box Walz checks off, but who might contribute to the ticket in other ways. In particular, Josh Shapiro stands out as someone who might have delivered Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is arguably the key state this election. If Trump wins it and carries the states that he carried in 2020, the election is very close to being over. Maybe internal polling has Team Harris convinced that Pennsylvania is in the bag (the public polling to date shows it as her weakest state), or maybe polling suggested that Shapiro really was problematic for Democrats in Michigan. But passing over him really is a puzzle to me (even more so than Trump passing over Rubio).
Sean Trende.
Both both picks make sense if the candidates are just being purely ideological. Not great, if you don’t share one of those ideologies.