How potential Harris VP picks’ 'familiarity with Trump' can help Democrats win: report
2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' Philadelphia, Pennsylvania rally, in which she is set to announce her 2024 running mate, is just two days away.
US Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, are all possible picks.
According to a Sunday, August 4 NBC News report, five of the six contenders "cultivated their state and national profiles by being prominent figures in the MAGA 'resistance' — whether it was clashing with [former President Donald] Trump as governor or state prosecutor, defeating his protégés in important races or pitching a new kind of politics in response to his rise."
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Per the news outlet, some Democratic leaders believe "their familiarity with Trump will" will benefit Harris.
"Trumpism has lost every election for almost a decade. Having to run against the very people who have beaten his crew time and again must be driving him to melt down even further," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told NBC. "These people know how to contrast their common sense with the extreme weirdness of MAGA and Trump. They’ve proven it."
Earlier this week, after Trump slammed Harris by making remarks about her racial identity, both Kelly and Shapiro criticized he MAGA hopeful. Kelly called Trump's attack "overtly racist" during a CNN interview, and Shapiro called the ex-president a "coward."
Additionally, during an appearance on The View on August 2, The Wrap reports that Buttigieg said, "If the election is about the candidates’ plans for Americans, he will lose, which is why he’s going to do everything he can without inflammatory and divisive language to change the subject. [Harris is] not going to let him."
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Walz, on the other hand, has gained recent media attention following viral videos of him labeling Trump and his allies as just plain "weird."
Then there's Pritzker, who NBC notes "may be the most outspoken Trump critic of the pack, often insulting the ex-president as a 'racist,' a 'homophobe,' a 'misogynist' and a felon."
The news outlet emphasizes, "Presidents don’t usually end up in direct confrontation with the politicians who rise as their counterweights during a first term. But Trump has now been on the scene long enough that those who rose in backlash against his first term are rising still further into national politics."
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NBC News' full report is available here.
