‘An End to the Trump Story’: Three Columnists Size Up Harris and Her V.P. Options
Jamelle Bouie, Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg
Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Jamelle Bouie, Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg to discuss Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate options — whom she will pick, whom she should pick, the Electoral College landscape for her and for Donald Trump, and what surprises and worries them about Harris, the Democrats, Trump and JD Vance. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
"Patrick Healy: Kamala Harris will announce her running mate very soon. In your view, who should she choose, and who will she choose? First, who do you think she should choose?
Michelle Goldberg: Like a lot of progressives, I barely knew who Tim Walz was two weeks ago. Now I love him, even though I worry that his normal Midwestern guy affect is starting to border on shtick. So I’m hoping it’s either him or Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky.
Healy: Michelle, what do you love about Walz?
Goldberg: He reads like an all-American heartland normie — a hunter and former high school football coach — who can articulate progressive priorities in a plain-spoken, unapologetic way. And branding Republicans “weird” was a stroke of genius, capturing the large part of the Venn diagram where sinister authoritarianism and ridiculous online subcultural tics overlap.
Ross Douthat: I appreciate the Walz phenomenon, too, but I suspect that Walz’s appeal to Democrats is a bit like the appeal of conservative African American politicians to some Republicans: Here’s a guy who shares my worldview but looks or talks like a member of the other coalition! And just as Trump picking Tim Scott probably wouldn’t have delivered many more African American votes to the G.O.P., I’m skeptical that Harris picking a heartland white guy would achieve all that much for the Democrats.
Jamelle Bouie: The evidence that a vice-presidential selection has any meaningful impact on state-by-state vote share is slim to none. The high estimate for impact on national vote share is somewhere around a single percentage point. There hasn’t been a vice-presidential nominee who you could plausibly say delivered a state since Lyndon Johnson in 1960.
The real question is who can be an asset to the presidential nominee — who can build on the message of the campaign, perform well on the stump and stand as a plausible would-be president. By that measure, I’d say Harris has good reason to pick any one of the people on the V.P. shortlist. If it were my decision, I’d go with Beshear. He’s young — which emphasizes the message of generational change — he’s about as pro-choice as one can be in Kentucky and he introduces a measure of geographic diversity that could be beneficial for Democrats. Also, he’s a University of Virginia grad, and I appreciate that.
Douthat: My heuristic is simple: V.P. picks only matter, if they matter at all, on the very thinnest margin of a close race. Therefore if one of your choices is a politician who’s extremely popular in a state that is must-win for Harris and might be decided by percentage point or less, he’s the guy to pick — and that means Harris should pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
Healy: Harris almost certainly needs to win Michigan, too. Ross, by your heuristic, did you ever think Gov. Gretchen Whitmer coulda been a contender?
Douthat: I assume that there was a convergence of interests where the Harris campaign didn’t want to run a two-woman ticket given the party’s struggles with male voters, and Whitmer herself felt confident enough in her own political stock to envision a future presidential run that doesn’t require a stint (long or short) as Harris’s No. 2.
Healy: And who do you guys think Harris will choose, if there’s any difference?
Douthat: I think the Harris campaign in its great wisdom agrees with me and will pick Shapiro.
Bouie: I think she’s most likely to choose either Shapiro or Beshear, as they are both former attorneys general.
Goldberg: I think it will probably be Shapiro, because Pennsylvania is basically the ballgame in November. I hear what Jamelle is saying — that in a nationalized election we shouldn’t assume that any V.P. candidate can deliver his or her state. Still, he’s obviously very popular there, and has built up credibility with Pennsylvania voters.
Shapiro’s also a fantastic communicator, which is why he’s been dubbed Baruch Obama. I worry, however, that by choosing a candidate who has leaned really hard into criticism of the campus protests over the war in Gaza, Harris risks dividing a Democratic Party that right now is very united.
Granted, a lot of people exaggerate how salient Israel-Palestine is to the majority of young people. But I think it matters to enough of them to create dissension both online and at the Democratic National Convention, quashing some of the ebullience that people feel right now.
Healy: Regarding Shapiro, a question I’ve heard a lot from readers is whether Shapiro being Jewish would help or hurt the Harris ticket in some must-win swing states, particularly Michigan. Embedded in that question: whether antisemitism in America is not just a social and cultural and religious problem but also an electoral one.
Douthat: Antisemitism is real, of course, but Jews are popular in America; more popular, by some measures, than any other religious group! Philosemitism supplies some of the only common ground between secular liberals and evangelical Christians, and there’s no good evidence that I’ve seen that some meaningful group of swing voters are going to be turned off by a Jewish politician on the ticket. (If anything, given that Harris doesn’t come across as an especially pious politician, you could see Shapiro’s religiosity being reassuring to some Christian voters.)
Healy: How do you see the Israel-Gaza war being a factor in a Harris-Shapiro ticket, Ross?
Douthat: It could have some very modest effect on left-wing or Arab American turnout in the event that we get that ticket. But if Harris is relying on campus activists and Dearborn, Mich., to put her over the top, she’s already blundering, and it’s her own stances on the conflict that are likely to matter most, not her running mate’s relationship to Zionism. If she puts a foot wrong that’s what will hurt her; if she finesses the issue successfully you’re not going to see activists abandoning her because of positions her running mate has taken in the past.
Goldberg: I don’t think it’s about Harris relying on campus activists as much as the possibility that Shapiro could reopen a wound in the Democratic Party that had finally started to heal. Until approximately five minutes ago, Democrats were fearing chaos at the convention over Gaza, so there’s a cost to raising the salience of the issue. It’s important to emphasize that this isn’t about Shapiro being Jewish or Zionist — it’s about the very aggressive stance he’s taken on the demonstrators. None of these worries would apply if Harris chose Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, who is also Jewish.
Substantively, even though I’m to Shapiro’s left on Israel and Palestine, I’m not that worried about what he’d do in office. If anything, I think he’d give Harris cover to get tougher with the Israeli right.
Healy: And what about the historic nature of a Harris-Shapiro ticket?
Goldberg: On the one hand, there’s something extremely exciting about it, just as there was when Georgia elected a Black Democrat and a Jewish Democrat as senators. The alliance between Black people and Jewish people has always been crucial to the progressive movement, and a Shapiro-Harris ticket would concretize that.
I am a little concerned about how a Black and Jewish ticket would inflame the American right. The kind of person who would see Harris and Shapiro as replacement theory made manifest was surely already voting for Trump, but if Shapiro is chosen I’d still expect it to inject a new element of antisemitism into the campaign.
Douthat: I think the worst fears of online edgelords are not fears that should trouble the Democrats right now, and if you did have a surge of racism and antisemitism in response to such a ticket it would be seen by Harris’s campaign as a net benefit.
Goldberg: On an electoral level I absolutely agree — anything that reminds the public how much antisemitism still exists on the right is likely to benefit Democrats. I’m still dreading it, though.
Bouie: Maybe I’m too political-science-brained, but I honestly don’t think any of it will really matter in the end! Even Sarah Palin, widely regarded as one of the worst vice-presidential selections in modern memory, had a marginal impact on John McCain’s vote share, if anything. Harris’s selection will certainly affect how people like us talk about the election — and will shape the narratives we hope to promulgate to readers — but practically speaking, it will have next to no impact on how people vote. No one who is already inclined to vote for Harris is going to sit the election out because she chooses one inoffensive white male governor over another. If I’m offering advice to Harris, I simply say: Pick someone who you think you can work with, who you think you can campaign with and who you think you can trust.
Goldberg: But Jamelle, how much can political science really tell us about the impact of social media vibe shifts and activist displeasure? Something I think about constantly is how many Hillary Clinton supporters were so intimidated by trolls that they gathered in secret Facebook groups, and then the narrative took hold that there was no enthusiasm for her. I don’t think that’s going to happen here — the real-life excitement for Harris is too strong — but I think it’s possible that a big fight over Israel and Palestine could have a real, if marginal, effect on organizing.
Healy: Another Democrat getting some attention is Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. But the question I have is about Arizona — whether Arizona makes the most sense for Harris to put her energies to win or whether she should be focusing on the blue-wall Midwestern states. Jamelle, how do you see the Electoral College map for Harris?
Bouie: One interesting thing about the national race is that Biden’s departure and Harris’s entry seems to have reset overall conditions to what you would expect given the fundamentals of the election — i.e., a modestly strong economy and, in Harris, a modestly well-regarded nominee. I’ve seen some models that predict a three-point margin for Harris in the national popular vote. Which means, looking at the map state by state, that you would want to focus on places where that puts you right on the verge of winning. A cautious campaign would center its attention on Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Harris can carry those three, that is the ballgame.
Knowing, however, the high likelihood of Trump-center shenanigans after the election, Harris will want to do as much as possible to reconstitute the entire Biden map, which means keeping Arizona, Georgia and Nevada in her corner, as well.
Douthat: Kelly would be my second choice after Shapiro, but even with the Harris reshuffle I’m still betting on Pennsylvania being closer than Arizona. And conceding to Jamelle the general point about how little a V.P. pick seems to matter historically, I think you want to pluck your personable moderate from the state where the margin is likely to be closest.
Goldberg: I agree with Jamelle that Harris should be hedging her bets. One great advantage she has over Biden is that she has more than one path to victory.
Healy: What do you think Harris’s vice-presidential pick will reveal to us about Harris herself? What might her choice indicate to us as we are still getting to know who Harris is?
Douthat: Based on the choices she’s reportedly considering, it will demonstrate very little about her own core policy convictions, and a great deal about her eminently understandable desire to win.
Goldberg: Obviously it depends on who it is, but it will show us how she balances caution and risk-taking. If it’s Shapiro, it will reveal that unlike in the 2020 presidential primary race, Harris is no longer worried about appealing to her party’s left and is going to be ruthlessly pragmatic in pursuit of swing voters. If it’s Walz, it suggests that she wants to tap into the energy of progressives. (I have mixed feelings about this: I adore Walz but would also be a bit concerned by any indication that her campaign is taking strategy cues from people on the internet.) And at least on paper, Beshear seems like the safe pick who splits the difference.
Healy: I’m curious how Harris is looking to you right now as a Democratic presidential nominee?
Bouie: It is possible we’re still witnessing the honeymoon stage of Harris’s entry onto the national stage as a presidential candidate. But the degree to which she hasn’t made a single misstep is still something to see, as is the immediate strength of her campaign operation. Perhaps, as things settle into a more predictable rhythm and the race reaches its final stretch, we’ll see a Harris who isn’t as steady in the public eye. My sense, however, is that she really is a much improved version of herself, and a genuinely strong candidate for the presidency.
Douthat: I find it hard to separate Harris herself (who hasn’t even given a real interview since she stepped in for Biden) from the Harris phenomenon, which is what has elevated her in the polls: the synchronization of a Democratic Party energized by its sudden escape from a looming debacle with a media and entertainment apparatus eager for a new narrative and naturally inclined to favor any candidate not named Donald Trump. I’ve been a littlesurprised at how quickly people seem to have abandoned or forgotten the perceptions of Harris that they had just a few months ago, but only a little: The incentives for belief are very strong right now. But we really haven’t seen enough from the candidate herself to know if she can sustain that newfound faith.
Goldberg: Ross, you’re right that we haven’t seen a Harris interview since her ascent, but we’ve seen her on the trail, and she’s performed superbly. Her decision to emphasize freedom was a very good one, as was her choice to go on the offensive over immigration and the border.
Healy: Michelle, you saw Harris in action this week at a campaign rally in Atlanta. What stood out to you?
Goldberg: Some conservatives have been so discombobulated by the abrupt shift in the campaign that they’ve convinced themselves the delirious enthusiasm for Harris is fake. It isn’t. Something that people said to me over and over at the rally was that it reminded them of when Barack Obama ran in 2008.
I agree with that analogy when it comes to the joy and excitement, though the mood is a little different. When Obama ran, Democrats dreamed of high-minded unity. Now they’re thrilled to see a fighter who they think can take on a golem who has poisoned the atmosphere in this country for nearly a decade. There’s great pleasure in seeing a candidate laughing in the face of a bully: It’s why you’re hearing Democrats talk about Trump and Vance as “weird” rather than threatening.
One thing that’s definitely Obama-like is the sense that the campaign is in sync with popular culture, which of course Biden’s was not. I kept seeing beautiful, stylish young women posing for selfies with the crowd in the background. It’s a good thing for a campaign to give off a sense of FOMO.
Healy: In 2019, when I was the politics editor in the Times newsroom, we published an in-depth piece and interview with Harris headlined “What Kamala Harris Believes,” which captured a challenge of hers in that campaign: to present clear and ideologically coherent views to voters. It’s something that she struggled with during that campaign. As we talk about her today, 13 days into her campaign, do you have a clear or strong sense of what she believes? And what she would do if elected president?
Douthat: Somewhat like the current president, I think she is basically a professional politician who moves with her party, leftward in 2020 and a little rightward since — but for generational and geographical reasons she starts out to the left of where Biden tended to start out on any given issue. I don’t think of her as a figure with especially idiosyncratic convictions on specific issues, and I imagine that as president she would hew reasonably close to the consensus of her party — but again, usually operating about a standard deviation to her predecessor’s left. (These are exact measurements!)
Goldberg: I think articulating what she believed was hard for her in 2019 and 2020 because a lot of her convictions are fairly moderate, like the idea that public safety is a precondition for criminal justice reform. I agree with Ross that she’s basically a standard Democrat who if given a chance will implement standard Democratic priorities, with maybe more of an emphasis on court reform and abortion rights than we’ve seen so far from Biden. I imagine she’ll fight hard for paid family leave.
And I’m sure she believes to the bottom of her soul that Donald Trump is a criminal who belongs in prison.
Bouie: Yeah, in line with Ross and Michelle, I think the better question might be: What does the Democratic Party intend to do with another four years in office? If Harris wins in November, and if she wins with congressional majorities, I think we might see the party take another bite at Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, and specifically the expanded child tax credit. If there is some agreement on modifying (or ending) the filibuster, I also expect that we would see an effort to codify abortion rights at the federal level and pass a new federal voting rights bill.
Healy: Trump and JD Vance have been playing a lot of defense over the last two weeks — Vance over his “childless cat ladies” remark, and now Trump with his comments at the National Association of Black Journalists conference this week, about how Harris “happened to turn Black” and other comments. Do you think undecided voters, swing voters or first-time voters will care about them? Do they cause a person who might be inclined to vote for Trump not to vote for Trump?
Douthat: I think Trump had a real opportunity after the assassination attempt to lock in some of the persuadable voters who were wavering between him and the Democrats, and his rambling, vintage Trump convention speech was a big (if predictable) missed opportunity, which helped open the door to Kamalamentum. For the stuff since, it’s too soon to tell: Clearly Vance is likely to be a figure of special hatred for liberals for the next three months, if not the next four years, but I’m not sure we have the kind of culture anymore where a single narrative or reputational attack can become dominant outside of partisan bubbles.
Goldberg: I always find it difficult to figure out what will stick until I’m out on the road talking to people. That said, I think the polls show us that Vance’s creepy misogyny matters. And I should mention that the first person I met at the Harris rally wasn’t planning to vote when the candidate was Biden, but had lined up in the brutal Georgia heat at noon, more than five hours before the event began, for Harris. Emotions matter a lot in politics! But pundits aren’t always the best judge of what will cause an emotional reaction.
Bouie: I think one underestimates the extent to which social media can shape people’s perception of the national political environment. And here, I don’t mean Twitter, or whatever it’s called now, I mean TikTok and Instagram and podcasts and the like. I think Trump’s comments at the N.A.B.J. conference, much like his “Black jobs” comments, have a real chance of breaking through to the general public. It’s clear to me, at least, that JD Vance has become an object of mockery among younger users of social media.
But when it comes to the voters who will decide this election, let’s be real: They will almost certainly decide in the last few weeks of the race, and the overall vibes of the campaign at the time will matter a great deal.
Healy: Ross, earlier you said that “the worst fears of online edgelords are not fears that should trouble the Democrats right now.” So, what are the fears that should trouble the Democrats right now? And Michelle, Jamelle: what do you think should worry the party the most right now, if anything?
Douthat: The obvious Democratic fear should be that the Biden team was always right to consider Harris a weak candidate, that her weaknesses will reassert themselves with more exposure, and that we’re watching a high-water mark for her campaign right now in which she’s made the race at best a 50-50 bet, not actually pulled into the lead.
Goldberg: I worry that she’ll get defensive trying to explain why she’s shifted some of her stances, instead of just saying that she learned a lot in the White House and then pivoting to the fact that Trump once donated to her, and chose a running mate who once compared him to Hitler.
Bouie: The big thing I would worry about if I were a Democratic strategist is the challenge of reminding voters that Donald Trump was actually president, does actually have a record, and should be evaluated on that record, and not on the basis of what he might do.
Healy: To end this conversation on an upbeat note befitting the mood of many Democrats these days, what do you see as the more significant, real, genuine reason for Democrats to feel good about their ticket or the fight against Trump-Vance right now, if any?
Bouie: I mean, one month ago Democrats were losing the race for president; now they’re virtually even. They have the advantage of a nominee who, despite her relatively high profile, is still something of a blank slate, and they’re facing off against an unpopular and much diminished Republican nominee who squandered a week of the best press he ever received.
Goldberg: A lot of Democrats were either tepid in their support for Clinton or abashed about it. Most of the 2020 campaign happened amid the terror and isolation of Covid. This is the first time the party is completely united and running a full-throated, maximally enthusiastic real-world campaign against Trump. One woman I spoke to in Georgia said a Harris victory would be the Hollywood movie version of an end to the Trump story.
Douthat: Just the obvious point that they have achieved a real reset of a campaign they were previously losing and now get to face an unpopular, undisciplined G.O.P. nominee without the baggage of a manifestly unfit candidate of their own. That’s a pretty big achievement, given where things stood a few weeks back.
Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @jbouie
Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @DouthatNYT •Facebook
Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment.
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