This is WESA Politics, a weekly newsletter providing analysis about Pittsburgh and state politics. If you want it earlier — we'll deliver it to your inbox on Thursday afternoon — sign up here. Oliver Morrison is filling in for Chris Potter this week.
The presumptive Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris swooped into the presidential race last week and drew tens of thousands of new supporters on Zoom. (And if voluntarily jumping on a Zoom meeting isn’t an accurate gauge of voter enthusiasm, I don’t know what could be.) This week was supposed to be the week that the job of vetting serious vice presidential candidates would get, well, serious.
At least in theory, vetting should be serious work. The Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance spent the past week trying to spin his previous comments about America being run by “childless cat ladies” as just a sarcastic joke that Democrats didn’t get.
At or near the top of the list of Democratic VP hopefuls — according to pundits, betting markets, poll aggregators and well, Pennsylvania Democrats — is Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Nearly all of the white, moderate VP candidates reportedly still being considered have high-favorability ratings in their home states. Not only does Shapiro fit the bill, but he is the only VP hopeful remaining in a must-win state for Democrats. (Never mind that at least one recent study suggests VPs don’t actually help their ticket — even in their home states.)
On Tuesday, the Harris campaign announced that her first event with a running mate would be … in PHILADELPHIA. Surely, many pundits have surmised, she wouldn’t choose Shapiro’s own backyard to announce a different VP? The campaign clarified — or deflected — that she could.
This conjecture pushed evaluations of Shapiro to a fever pitch. Instead of promoting their preferred option, the most liberal Democrats seemed to settle on a strategy of undermining who they believe is the worst.
“The one Vice Presidential pick who could ruin Democratic unity,” argued David Klion for The New Republic, is Shapiro.
Criticisms of Shapiro have largely been the flip side of what makes him an attractive moderate. He supports vouchers for private schools and the natural gas industry. And he’s been an outspoken supporter of Israel at a time when many progressives believe America is supporting Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Pennsylvania’s average voters, however, think Shapiro is doing a bang-up job. His 54% approval rating in April is higher than that of the past four Pennsylvania governors at this point in their terms. And having a moderate on the ticket could help Harris parry criticisms that the stances she took during the 2020 presidential primary are too liberal for swing voters. (Including locally on fracking.)
The Atlantic argued this week that it may not be a coincidence that Shapiro is facing such intense scrutiny. Shapiro would be only the second Jewish person ever nominated to a presidential ticket by a major party. All of the current contenders for VP have voiced support for Israel and have taken relatively similar stances to that of Shapiro’s on how to handle pro-Palestinian protests. But only Shapiro has been singled out for his strident tone condemning some pro-Palestinian protests.
This is despite the fact that Shapiro has criticized Israel’s government for months.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is a deeply flawed leader who failed to protect his country on October 7 … and this war has tragically ended too many innocent lives in Gaza,” said Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s spokesperson.
Shapiro’s critics have pointed to comments he made comparing campus protesters at some universities to the KKK. In that interview, Shapiro said that he believes in the right to protest but not when it crosses the line into antisemitism. The line between acceptable protest and antisemitism is a line over which Democrats continue to argue. (Most Pittsburgh Democratic leaders said the graffiti found on a local synagogue and other buildings this week crossed the line.) And to prove that anti-Shapiro sentiment itself is not antisemitic, Shapiro’s critics point to Illinois’ Jewish governor as someone who has threaded the needle better.
Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Miller, the majority whip for the Democrats in the state House of Representatives, said Shapiro has been aligned with his caucus 99% of the time. He said the governor earlier this year helped to put forth the most generous and equitable education funding bill Pennsylvania has ever passed — even if Shapiro didn’t agree with the rest of the caucus on voucher funding for private schools. Democrats, Miller said, are a wide-tent party that can disagree politely and then move forward.
That sets the Democrats apart from Republicans, said Rep. Nick Pisciottano of West Mifflin.
“I don't even know if the Republicans have a national platform,” he said. “It's usually just whatever Donald Trump wants.”
The Republicans did adopt a national platform that was … greatly influenced by what Trump wanted. Most notably, Trump successfully expunged the most explicit language in the party platform calling for a national abortion ban.
On Wednesday, two of Congress’ most liberal members, U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Summer Lee, were in Pittsburgh to remind Harris supporters that Trump brags about his effort to overturn the right to an abortion.
Wednesday’s event was also an opportunity to gauge how progressives feel about Shapiro. Lee has been one of the most outspoken congressional critics of Israel and the war in Gaza. As an institution, she said, Democrats need to do better at protecting the free speech of young, marginalized groups who protest.
“We're made better as a country as we work through that tension, as we work through our own preconceived notions of what free speech looks like, how we embrace free speech,” she said. “So I think that we all have room for all of us to do better. This is not relegated to one person.”
And she added: “Whoever is on that ticket, I will be out making sure that my community is protected.”
It wasn’t an endorsement of Shapiro’s approach to these issues by any means. But in one test of how progressives might respond to a Harris/Shapiro ticket after the posturing dies down — Shapiro earned at least a passing grade.
