Here Are the Names Democrats Are Considering for Kamala’s Running Mate

Fallout from Biden’s disastrous debate performance continues to outpace his campaign’s insistence he’ll remain in the race, with what CNN describes as “many top Democratic circles” already moving to assess who Kamala Harris’s vice president should be.

Two dozen top Democrats—described by CNN as an unnamed yet “widening group of leading party officials, operatives, and donors”—have looked into Democratic governors as potential vice presidential picks for Harris, with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear leading discussions. Democrats have also floated Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as possible contenders.

CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, who wrote the article delving into possible contenders, stated that within hours of its publication, even more Democrats reached out with ideas about who Harris’s running mate should be. The assessments on potential running mates for Harris, CNN notes, are born from certainty among top Democrats that Biden’s reelection campaign is doomed. The names being floated are part of a quasi-mutinous effort to make a compelling case for Harris despite the Biden campaign’s firm stance that he won’t step aside.

One unnamed Democratic senator described the situation to CNN using a lengthy football allegory, describing Biden as a failing “star quarterback” and Harris as his backup quarterback. That senator argued that a Harris ticket is more realistic than backing an alternate from outside the campaign, saying, “The idea of our suddenly drafting someone from a school with a different playbook who hasn’t played a single game in the NFL is a huge risk.”

“We start talking in the huddle: Do we put in the backup Q.B.? The backup knows our team, the backup knows the plays, the backup has played in the NFL,” the senator told CNN. “The crowd in the stands full of passionate fans starts chanting: ‘Put in the kid from Alabama!’ ‘Put in the Q.B. from Wisconsin!’ All just because the backup threw an interception earlier. But we know the backup and have confidence in them.”

“[Biden]’s in such bad shape,” one Democratic House member whom CNN described as a “Harris doubter” told the outlet. “But I’ve also had conversations with Democrats about [Harris] from some key groups that have been skeptical in the past who believe everyone will rally to her if she’s the nominee.”

“It’s a straight shot, and she’s ready to roll,” former Ohio Representative Tim Ryan told CNN. Ryan said he’s received a flood of agreement in private after publicly calling for Biden to step aside and back Harris. “We’ve got to be decisive too. It plays right into the stereotype that Democrats are weak. With one fell swoop, you can change so many different narratives.”

The appraisals of possible Harris running mates are largely speculative and appear intended to gauge which combination would make for the strongest duo to defeat Trump and his still-unnamed running mate. Still, the push to firm up a strong case for an ideal Harris ticket has pulled the Democratic Party even further from the Biden campaign’s hard-line insistence that he will remain on the ticket—and echoes efforts from major Democratic donors working to use their money to coerce Biden into dropping out.

After 14 years of government led by the Conservative Party, the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party won a landslide victory early Friday, ushering in a new era of government as the party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, moved into 10 Downing St.

But none of that was remarkable to Donald Trump, who, in a brief message posted to Truth Social, congratulated one of his longest foreign allies on winning his first seat in the U.K. Parliament.

“Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success,” Trump wrote in a since-deleted post, referring to the right-wing populist party which won four seats in Friday’s election. “Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country! DJT.”

Farage, who flew over to the United States to support Trump’s 2016 bid for president, overturned a conservative majority in Clacton, Essex, to win the seat from the Conservative incumbent, Giles Watling, by more than 8,000 votes. Shortly after his win was announced, Farage told reporters that Reform’s rise would be the “beginning of the end of the Conservative Party.”

“This is just the first step in something that is going to stun you all,” Farage said at a press conference. “There is a massive gap on the center-right of British politics, and my job is to fill it.”

But ousting the Conservative Party, which got the boot after years of compounding failures like Brexit, is already underway. (Indeed, Trump’s tweet recalls his cheering on of Brexit, which he saw correctly as a sign of a rising global right-wing populist movement.) Next on the agenda would be winning over voters of the Labour Party, according to Farage, who outlined a plan to win the 2029 general election.

“What is interesting is, there’s no enthusiasm for Labour, there’s no enthusiasm for Starmer whatsoever,” Farage said. “In fact, about half of the vote is simply an anti-Conservative vote. This Labour Government will be in trouble very, very quickly. We will, now, be targeting Labour votes. We’re coming for Labour, be in no doubt about that.”

Farage said that Reform intends to hold another press conference at 2:30 p.m. British summer time, which would detail “the next steps for our political revolt.”

President Joe Biden met with a group of Democratic governors on Wednesday in an attempt to reassure them that his candidacy is still viable, after a disastrous debate performance last week and mounting reports that he’s become less lucid over the course of his presidency.

Some Democratic governors did not mince words with the president in the closed-door meeting, and told him that support for his candidacy was going down the drain in their respective states. None of the governors who met with Biden flat out told him to quit the campaign, as some top Democrats have already done, but a few raised their concerns about his candidacy, according to The New York Times.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who attended the meeting virtually, told the president that he’d seen a surge of calls from constituents for Biden to withdraw from the race, two people who were briefed on the call told the Times.

Maine Governor Janet Mills remarked that voters didn’t feel that Biden was up to the task of campaigning, and New Mexico Governor Michell Lujan said she was worried that Biden might lose the election in her state.

Although Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey remained quiet in the meeting, she told her fellow governors on Monday that she’d told Biden’s chief of staff that the president’s position was “irretrievable.”

The Times also reported that because Biden announced his intention to keep running at the beginning of the meeting, some felt that actual debate over his candidacy was off the agenda.

To be clear, after the meeting, some governors re-upped themselves as staunch Biden supporters. New York Governor Kathy Hochul and California Governor Gavin Newsom, whom some were floating as a possible candidate to replace Biden, both tweeted their support of the president. Others, like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who issued a dire warning to Biden about rescuing his floundering bid, remained notably silent.

A.J. Delgado, a former staffer on Trump’s 2016 campaign, shared bombshell texts alleging that the campaign “settled multiple” gender discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits. The texts, reportedly between Delgado and former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, came to light in new filings Delgado made as part of her ongoing discrimination lawsuit.

“Jenna, [between] us, do you know of anyone who complained of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, or sexual harassment, in the 2020 campaign? Do you know if the 2020 campaign settled any lawsuits regarding such?” texts allegedly from Delgado ask. “Yes. Off record—Boris. The campaign settled multiple suits,” a text reply allegedly from Ellis reads. “Have your investigator subpoena Michael Glassner,” the texts advise, apparently referring to the Trump 2020 campaign strategist.

While the “Boris” named in the text exchange isn’t clear, it could be Boris Epshteyn, strategic adviser for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Forbes’s Zach Everson noted while alerting to the filing that Epshteyn was arrested in 2021 following numerous complaints of groping women at a club.

The text exchange follows earlier sworn declarations by Delgado asserting that Trump’s 2016 campaign repeatedly used middlemen to send hush money with the direct intention of obscuring discrimination settlements from the public and from the Federal Election Commission.

“In other words, the payment would be routed through a middleman, to hide the fact that the Campaign had settled, from the public and the FEC,” Delgado stated in her earlier sworn court declaration. “I thus have direct, personal experience with the Defendant-Campaign hiding settlement payments to women, routing them through a ‘middleman law firm,’ which to the public would only appear as payments ‘for legal services.’” Immediately following the November 2020 election, the Trump campaign paid $4.1 million for legal services, according to The Daily Beast, alongside “millions in mysterious legal reimbursements to the campaign’s compliance firm, Red Curve Solutions.”

Delgado alleged in a 2023 lawsuit that she was raped by former Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller, her superior at the time. Miller denied the rape allegations and brushed off her lawsuit as “simply intended to harass my family while wasting the judiciary’s time and resources.” Delgado’s lawsuit claims Miller first attempted to coerce Delgado into sex in October 2016 by getting her too drunk to consciously consent, after which Miller engaged in a “cycle of sexual coercion, rape, sexual assault, abuse, battery, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking” to continue an affair. Delgado also claims she became pregnant by Miller and that, on informing the campaign she was pregnant, she was cut off from communications with the campaign.

Delgado had earlier alleged to have reason to believe Trump’s campaign paid off women who raised complaints of gender discrimination or sexual harassment, and the text exchange allegedly between Delgado and Ellis filed on Thursday appear to bolster that claim. Jessica Denson sued the Trump campaign for workplace harassment. ProPublica notes four other women have filed similar complaints against the 2016 campaign. Of those, Trump’s legal team used “scorched-earth tactics,” according to ProPublica, to prevent the discrimination lawsuits from moving forward.

Frustrated with President Biden and his campaign after last week’s disastrous debate performance, major Democratic donors say they will withhold their campaign contributions unless Biden leaves the race.

The New York Times reports that major donors including Disney heiress Abigail E. Disney, Hollywood producer Damon Lidelof, and politically well-connected donor Gideon Stein all plan to keep their money to themselves until Biden steps aside. 

Disney said that the Biden campaign and the committees supporting it, such as super PACs, the Democratic National Committee, and nonprofits “will not receive another dime from me until they bite the bullet and replace Biden at the top of the ticket.”

“Biden is a good man who has served his country well, but the stakes are far too high to allow timidity to determine our course of action,” Disney added.

“A new ticket is in the best interest of defeating Donald Trump,” said Stein, who said his family would hold back on $3.5 million in political donations unless Biden withdraws from the 2024 contest.

Losing some of the wealthiest campaign contributors is bad news for Biden, and will add to fears brought on by grim poll numbers and open criticism from other Democrats, as well as muted criticism from White House staff. Two sitting members of Congress, Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Raúl Grijalva, have publicly called on Biden to step aside from the 2024 race, while other House members are circulating a draft letter calling for the same. The more support Biden loses, the greater the pressure will be for him to drop out, and bad press against him could hurt his poll numbers even further.

While the Democratic National Convention isn’t until August, the party was planning on holding a virtual call to formally nominate Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee earlier to avoid legal deadlines for ballot access in certain states. Biden and his family have a big choice to make, and soon: Republicans (and Donald Trump) may prefer Biden, but they are already licking their chops against potential replacements.