The One Vice Presidential Pick Who Could Ruin Democratic Unity

When President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was no longer running for reelection and was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place, an immediate wave of euphoria swept across the broad spectrum of the Democratic coalition. In an instant, an 81-year-old white man who frequently struggled to form complete sentences was out and a 59-year-old multiracial woman who communicates in the crisp language of an experienced prosecutor was in. Harris raked in a record $81 million in just 24 hours and Republicans started openly panicking. Across Blue America, everyone is coconut-pilled.

That includes the left, or, more precisely, the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party—progressive millennial voters such as myself who were grudgingly welcomed into Biden’s big tent four years ago. On issues like labor, climate, and student debt, Biden delivered far more for us than anyone anticipated. In the process, he earned the loyalty of Sanders and his heir apparent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom were among Biden’s staunchest defenders as calls for him to step down grew over the last month following his humiliating performance in last month’s debate.

For rank and file leftists, however, any goodwill Biden might have banked on domestic policy had long since been squandered. For more than nine months following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Biden has fully enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reprisal campaign and his genocidal war crimes against the Palestinians of Gaza. At the same time, he and his allies have arrogantly dismissed a wave of activism driven by young leftists demanding an immediate ceasefire. These activists never wanted Trump to return to power, and, for the most part, understood he would be at least as bad as Biden on Palestine—and worse on everything else. Still, it was impossible to muster any grassroots enthusiasm for reelecting “Genocide Joe” amid the daily flood of horrific videos, images, and reports from Gaza. Biden’s stance on Palestine wasn’t the biggest reason he was struggling in the polls even before the debate fiasco. But it undoubtedly hurt him at the margins, and especially in the must-win state of Michigan, with its sizable Arab American population.

No one on the left expects Harris to be perfect, but there are already reasons to think she could be an improvement. Back in March, she was out ahead of Biden in both calling for a ceasefire and sounding the alarm about famine and inhumane conditions in Gaza, which she explicitly blamed on the Israeli government. This week, as Netanyahu visits Washington for a joint address to Congress, she’s skipping the speech (which she would normally be expected to preside over in her role as president of the Senate) and will instead meet with Netanyahu one-on-one to demand an end to the war. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that she would likely replace National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, both of whom are deeply implicated in Biden’s disastrous Middle East strategy. (Harris also has a personal connection to left-wing activists that Biden lacks: Her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, who is Jewish, is an active presence in pro-Palestinian circles.)

This is a hopeful moment for the whole left-liberal coalition. The vibes, for once, are good. Almost every leftist I know is excited about Harris and thinks Trump is beatable. With a newly united party behind her, there are only so many ways Harris can screw it up, but one seems all too plausible: she could select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

On paper, it’s understandable why Shapiro is among the leading candidates reportedly being vetted by Harris. Like nearly all of the veep contenders, he’s a white male governor with a centrist reputation. At 51, he’s even younger than Harris and a fresh face, having only held his current job for 18 months. He has already shown himself to be a more than capable administrator, generating a lot of good publicity for repairing a damaged section of I-95 within two weeks. Most importantly, Pennsylvania is the most valuable swing state in play, worth 19 electoral votes, and Shapiro is very popular there.

Unfortunately, Shapiro also stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine. It’s not just that he, like many Democrats, is an outspoken supporter of Israel—though he certainly is, having championed Israel’s war against Hamas consistently and without any apparent concern for Palestinian civilians. Shapiro has, moreover, done far more than most Democrats to attack pro-Palestine, anti-war demonstrators, in ways that call into question his basic commitment to First Amendment rights.

In his previous role as Pennsylvania attorney general, Shapiro championed the state’s constitutionally dubious anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) law against Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream maker refused to license its product for sale in Israeli settlements. “BDS is rooted in antisemitism,” Shapiro wrote in a statement in 2021, as he condemned a company named for its two Jewish American founders. “The stated goal of this amorphous movement is the removal of Jewish citizens from the region and I strongly oppose their efforts.”

As governor, Shapiro’s particular animus against pro-Palestine activism has only grown more apparent and troubling. Last December, he played an active role in the GOP-orchestrated sacking of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. During a visit to Goldie, the popular Philadelphia restaurant co-owned by the Israeli-born celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, Shapiro condemned Magill’s testimony on alleged antisemitism on the Ivy League campus before Rep. Elise Stefanik, the MAGA Right’s grand inquisitor. “That was an unacceptable statement from the president of Penn,” Shapiro said, referring to Magill’s unwillingness to accept Stefanik’s slippery framing on what constitutes antisemitism. “Frankly, I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. It should not be hard to condemn genocide.” Magill resigned four days after her testimony and three days after Shapiro’s statement, legitimizing the GOP’s wider assault on academic freedom, which would be repeated successfully against Harvard President Claudine Gay weeks later.

In April, Shapiro’s office baselessly claimed that a peaceful pro-Palestine encampment on the Penn campus threatened student safety. “If the universities in accordance with their policies can’t guarantee the safety and security and well-being of the students, then I think it is incumbent upon a local mayor or local governor or local town councilor, whoever is the local leadership there, to step in and enforce the law,” Shapiro told Politico at the time. In May, he urged Penn to shut down the encampment completely. “The University of Pennsylvania has an obligation to their safety,” he said, once again alluding to non-existent threats to the physical wellbeing of Jewish students. “It is past time for the university to act, to address this, to disband the encampment, and to restore order and safety on campus.” The university complied; one day and 33 arrests later, Shapiro’s office said Penn “made the right decision.”

That same week, The New York Times profiled Shapiro as one to watch in his party with the headline “A Rising Democrat Leans Into the Campus Fight Over Antisemitism.” In that piece, Shapiro made clear the low regard in which he holds pro-Palestine campus activists. “If you had a group of white supremacists camped out and yelling racial slurs every day, that would be met with a different response than antisemites camped out, yelling antisemitic tropes,” he told the Times. (This echoed a statement made in an earlier interview in which he compared campus protesters to the Ku Klux Klan). Then, in an executive order, Shapiro updated his administration’s code of conduct to forbid state employees from engaging in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior, a vaguely worded instruction that civil libertarians immediately interpreted as threatening pro-Palestine speech.

Shapiro is an observant Jew with personal ties to Israel; on October 7, he tweeted, “Our family has shared many special moments in Israel and our hearts break for those living this horror now.” If selected as Harris’s running mate and subsequently elected, he would become the first Jewish vice president in American history (a distinction narrowly missed by the late Joe Lieberman when Republicans stole the 2000 election).

CNN’s John King has already flagged that antisemitism might make the selection of a Jewish vice presidential candidate risky; likewise, calls from the left to oppose Shapiro risk being branded as antisemitic. Shapiro is not, however, the only Jew who has been suggested as a possible running mate for Harris. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has also garnered attention, and he has taken a very different approach to this issue. Asked by the Illinois state politics site Capitol Fax whether he agreed with Jewish organizations calling for the resignation of Northwestern University’s president over a pro-Palestine encampment, Pritzker replied, “I support the Jewish organizations. I’m not about calling for people to step down.” He also drew a distinction between antiwar, pro-Palestinian demonstrators and “some bad actors” engaged in antisemitism, and affirmed the need to protect free speech along with student safety.

Most other candidates floated for the VP spot have also taken a far less provocative approach to student protests than Shapiro (one partial exception is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who endorsed some GOP smears of campus protesters in an interview, though he hasn’t shown Shapiro’s same level of fixation). North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper actually drew criticism for making no public statement about an encampment at the University of North Carolina. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said that encampments at the University of Wisconsin were “in good faith” even as he acknowledged they would eventually need to end. Neither Kentucky’s Andy Beshear nor Minnesota’s Tim Walz made any public statements about similar demonstrations in their states.

While Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has said that protesters showing up at University of Michigan regents’ homes “crossed the line,” she has also been more sensitive than many in her party. “I think the only universal truth right now is everyone is hurting,” she said in May. “We have a robust Jewish community in this state. We have a robust Arab American community, Muslim community, Palestinian community [...] it’s important to see the humanity and the pain that people are feeling.”

Palestine is not Shapiro’s only progressive heresy. Just before October 7, he drew fire from teacher’s unions and public education advocates for supporting a Republican-backed plan to funnel $100 million in public money to private and religious schools. Although he was ultimately forced to back down under pressure, many are deeply and understandably skeptical of his commitment to public education—if Shapiro is ultimately passed over, there is a good possibility that will be a major reason why.

Still, his particular hostility toward pro-Palestine activists threatens to blunt the enthusiasm among young progressive voters that Harris has managed to generate in the past few days. It could also undermine the Democratic ticket in Michigan, where Arab American activists have cheered the news of Biden’s withdrawal and are adopting a wait-and-see posture toward Harris. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, is currently holding off on endorsing Harris but has expressed interest in engaging with her on ending the war in Gaza.

Beyond Arab and Muslim Americans, Harris will need to mobilize thousands of young people across the country not only to vote for her but to knock doors, phone bank, and do all the other kinds of grassroots volunteering that translates into a successful presidential campaign. Younger Americans disproportionately sympathize with Palestinians, which is one reason Biden’s approval numbers have suffered badly over the past year. As long as US-made bombs keep falling on Gaza, this issue won’t go away—protests will haunt the Democratic convention in Chicago next month, the beginning of the fall term on college campuses in September, and the anniversary of the attacks on October 7 will fall 29 days before Election Day.

Harris has a real opportunity to turn Biden’s dismal numbers around, and has given at least some indication that she understands how. A great deal of the excitement surrounding her candidacy from young voters stems from the hope that she is more sensitive to ongoing suffering in Gaza and more likely to pressure Netanyahu to end the war. Picking Josh Shapiro as her running mate would send a very different message, and would discourage precisely the people she needs to ensure her victory over Trump.