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Gov. Josh Shapiro won’t be on the Democratic ticket, and nor, for that matter, will the Scranton-born President Biden. But party officials in the battleground state are cautiously hopeful.
Aug. 9, 2024, 1:06 p.m. ET
To Josh Shapiro’s supporters, the case for him as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate was clear: He was the popular governor of Pennsylvania, and could help her lock down the most important battleground state on the map.
Ultimately, of course, she went with Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota instead, leaving Pennsylvania Democrats to confront a new reality.
After years of basking in attention from the Scranton-born President Biden, and after roughly two weeks of furious speculation about Mr. Shapiro’s potential promotion, their state no longer stars on their party’s presidential ticket.
Democrats may reassess Ms. Harris’s choice of a running mate in hindsight if she narrowly loses Pennsylvania, the electoral-vote-rich state that decided the 2020 election for Mr. Biden and is universally seen as pivotal and highly competitive again this year.
But for now, interviews with even some of Mr. Shapiro’s strongest backers in Pennsylvania suggest that most Democrats, riding a wave of newfound momentum, have not only made peace with Ms. Harris’s choice — they have also embraced it fully.
“We like to have our favorite son there, naturally,” said former Representative Robert A. Brady, the chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, who was a vocal Shapiro supporter during the vice-presidential search.
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