The stunning transformation of the 2024 presidential race will reach new heights Tuesday when Vice President Kamala Harris unveils her running mate after a sequence of events that left Republican nominee Donald Trump flailing.
Harris is due to join her vice presidential pick at a rally in Philadelphia that will kick off a joint sprint across an electoral map expanded by President Joe Biden’s shelving of his own re-election bid just over two weeks ago.
In the final hours of her search after a compressed vetting period, Harris narrowed in on two candidates – Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, 51, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, 60, sources told CNN, although Arizona Senator Mark Kelly remained in the running as of Monday afternoon.
Shapiro is a rising Democratic star whose popularity in the commonwealth could be an asset to Harris in perhaps the most vital swing state. Walz is an experienced progressive leader whose profile could help shore up the midwestern blue wall states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, that may represent Harris’ best route to the Oval Office.
The theatrics will offer the vice president a fresh chance to supercharge her candidacy’s momentum, which has energized a party that had looked headed for defeat in November and tightened the contest into a 50-50 struggle in a polarized country. Her relative youth, at 59, has inverted the generational contrast with Trump, 78, now that the issue of Biden’s age and acuity in a potential second term is moot.
While the naming of the Democratic vice presidential pick is the focus of the campaign, new developments Monday – outside a race that has been on a momentous trajectory since Trump escaped an assassination attempt and Biden pulled out – hinted at potential new twists to come before November. (CNN)
