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The race to be Kamala Harris’s running mate in the US presidential election is now on.
The vice president is currently in pole position to replace President Joe Biden as the Democrats’ presidential nominee after he dropped out of the race, securing a wave of endorsements from her party and breaking fundraising records.
As she consolidates her lead position, vowing to take the fight to Republican nominee Donald Trump in a feisty speech in Milwaukee on Tuesday, attention is swiftly turning to who she might pick as running mate.
Harris will have to move fast, making the crucial decision before the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago, where the party’s nominee for the presidential ticket will be formally decided.
She has hired former attorney general Eric Holder to lead a vetting team that has already identified suitable candidates who could complement her bid, scrutinising everything from their family histories to their finances.
As the race heats up, a number of names are currently being floated, with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly reportedly securing strong backing from party donors.
Here’s a guide to the runners and riders who are widely believed to be under consideration for the position:
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania governor
A rising star in the Democratic Party, Shapiro is seen as a top contender for the role of Harris’s running mate.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Pennsylvania, the trained lawyer served as his state’s attorney general from 2017 to 2023, taking on controversial cases like alleged sex abuse in the Catholic Church, and pushing back on former President Trump’s travel ban on people from Muslim countries.
The 51-year-old became Pennsylvania’s governor last year, pledging to protect abortion rights and resisting calls to deploy the National Guard to tackle the influx of migrants into the state.
Shapiro, who is Jewish, is a strong backer of Israel’s drive to eliminate Hamas and has blamed some pro-Palestinian demonstrations in universities for fuelling anti-Semitism on campus.
His profile was elevated further earlier this month, after the attempted assassination on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. Shapiro was praised for rising above partisan politics, describing Trump supporter Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the crossfire, as a “fellow Pennsylvanian”.
The Pennsylvania governor is reportedly backed by Wall Street donors who believe he will help Harris win a swing state that will play a decisive role in the race for the White House.
“I’ve known Kamala Harris for nearly two decades – we’ve both been prosecutors, we’ve both stood up for the rule of law, we’ve both fought for the people and delivered results,” Shapiro said in a statement on Sunday.
Mark Kelly, Arizona senator
The former astronaut and US Navy captain has positioned himself as a moderate in a hotly contested border state on the front line of the raging national debate over immigration.
Born in New Jersey to two police officers, the 60-year-old settled in Tucson after retiring from NASA and the Navy. He became a leading advocate of gun control after his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head in 2011.
As senator, Kelly has focused on the drought plaguing the US West, as well as national security and the military. His track record as a test pilot who logged 39 combat missions in the Gulf War compares favourably to the much-vaunted army credentials of Trump’s running mate JD Vance, who served in Iraq as a combat correspondent.
“I couldn’t be more confident that Vice President @KamalaHarris is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future,” Kelly wrote in an X post on Sunday.
Roy Cooper, North Carolina governor
Cooper has known Harris for more than a decade, working with her while he was state attorney general and she was serving in the same position in California.
In 2007, as attorney general, the North Carolina native dropped charges against three former Duke University lacrosse players accused of sexual assault by an escort service dancer. Cooper declared them “innocent”. The lacrosse players sued Duke, and received damages.
Currently, the 67-year-old is finishing his second term as governor of the battleground state, which voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. In the latter election, Biden lost the state by less than two percentage points.
Cooper has won praise from Democrats for his strong focus on economic development, and for working with Republicans to bring jobs to the state. He has also prioritised public education funding, teacher raises, Medicaid expansion and addressing climate change.
“If you want a nominee who can put Donald Trump’s destruction of [abortion legislation] Roe v Wade at centre stage, if you want a nominee who actually prosecuted criminals like Donald Trump, and if you want a nominee who can put Trump’s age and fitness in the forefront, Kamala Harris is the person,” Cooper told MSNBC on Monday, one day after speaking with Harris and announcing his endorsement.
The vice president has called Cooper a “dear friend”. Picking him could bring Democrats much-needed electoral votes to bag North Carolina.
Andy Beshear, Kentucky governor
Beshear is a popular Democratic governor in a deep-red state that voted for Trump by a margin of more than 25 percentage points in 2020.
The Kentucky governor, who took office in 2019, has a reputation for working well with both parties, bringing jobs to Kentucky, supporting public education and expanding healthcare access.
The 46-year-old, who frequently mentions his Christian faith, has urged Democrats to follow his winning formula by focusing on the everyday concerns of Americans, from well-paying jobs to education and Medicare.
As governor, he has also vetoed legislation banning abortions and gender-affirming care for transgender youth, although the vetoes were overridden by the Republican-dominated legislature.
Beshear endorsed Harris on Monday, saying she could help the country “move on to something better”.
Asked if he would consider the vice presidency, he told MSNBC: “The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believed I could further help my people and to help this country.”
On Monday, Beshear hit out at Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who had criticised Democrats – including Harris – for not raising the alarm about Biden’s mental acuity earlier.
“Listen, JD Vance is a phony. He’s fake. I mean, he first says that Donald Trump is like Hitler, and now he’s acting like he’s Lincoln,” he told the CNN podcast The Source.
Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan governor
Born and raised in the state capital of Lansing, 52-year-old Whitmer entered the governor’s mansion in 2019.
She has built a strong base in the closely contested state, running on a platform of straight talk and core issues, campaigning with the slogan, “Fix the damn roads!”
Her criticism of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic drew fire from Trump, who called her “that woman from Michigan”.
In the midst of the pandemic, right-wing extremists protested outside her office with “Swastikas. Confederate flags. AR-15s”, she recounted in her recent memoirs, True Gretch.
A Harris-Whitmer pairing would represent the first all-woman ticket in a US presidential election, providing a stark contrast to the all-male, all-white Trump-Vance ticket.
Whitmer appeared to rule herself out of the race on Monday, telling CBS affiliate WLNS, “I am not leaving Michigan.”
However, earlier this month, while promoting True Gretch, she replied “never say never” when asked whether she would hypothetically consider serving as Harris’s running mate if Biden stepped aside.
JB Pritzker, Illinois governor
Billionaire JB Pritzker is a major force in the party, having tapped his own financial resources linked to his family’s hotel chain – Hyatt Hotels – to help Biden’s campaign effort.
A lawyer with decades of political experience, Pritzker previously co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The 59-year-old is not only a governor, but also a prominent surrogate for Biden on the campaign trail, working to rally support. He has called Trump’s far-right movement a “cancer” spreading throughout parts of the Republican Party.
Asked if he would be interested in joining Harris on Tuesday on the MSNBC news programme Morning Joe, he highlighted his work on the campaign trail, mentioning visits to Indiana and Ohio, as well as upcoming trips to Tennessee and Arizona.
“It’s important to me that we win across the board and all across the United States. So I’m gonna continue to do that. And I’m very interested in making sure that Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States,” he said.
While Pritzker’s home state of Illinois is a traditional Democratic stronghold, it is a key intersection for the Midwest, a stone’s throw away from key swing states like Wisconsin.
Pritzker has tried to leverage his roots in the region to the Democrats’ advantage, pledging to build a “blue wall” across the Midwest.
Pete Buttigieg, US transportation secretary
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg built a strong fan base among Democratic Party voters during his 2020 primary run against both Biden and Harris, winning the Iowa caucus.
The 42-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana later endorsed Biden and was picked to join the incoming administration in 2021 – the first openly gay man to hold a cabinet position.
A polished defender of Biden’s policies, Buttigieg plays well on media. Earlier this month, he appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, decrying JD Vance’s ties to the likes of PayPal boss Peter Thiel, one of a number of tycoons to back Trump.
“It’s super simple. These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men,” he told Maher.
The Navy vet is a graduate of Oxford and Harvard.
On Sunday, Buttigieg backed Harris’s candidacy, saying “Harris is now the right person to take up the torch, defeat Donald Trump and succeed Joe Biden … I will do all that I can to help her win.”
Tim Walz, Minnesota governor
Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, would bring to the presidential ticket a record of defeating Republicans in a Midwestern state.
Walz was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018 and won re-election in 2022. A veteran of the US Army National Guard, the 60-year-old serves as co-chair of the Democratic National Convention’s rules committee.
As governor, he has overseen state approval of the right to abortion, protected gender-affirming care and introduced free school meals for students.
On Monday, he told CBS Minneapolis affiliate WCCO that becoming vice president is something he would “be a little nervous about”.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, when asked if Harris’s team was vetting him, he responded: “Look, I spoke with the vice president. I’m not going to get into exactly what we spoke about, but we have the same values. We believe we can win in the Midwest.”
Walz could help shore up support for the Democrats in the upper Midwest.
Wes Moore, Maryland governor
Moore became Maryland’s first Black governor in 2023.
The 45-year-old US Army veteran, former Rhodes scholar and New York Times bestselling author has a compelling backstory. His father died when he was young, released too early from hospital with a treatable infection.
A powerful speaker, Moore has fought to eradicate child poverty, leading the Robin Hood Foundation. His big policy goals include moving to 100 percent clean energy.
He came to national attention after the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland in March 2024.
However, Moore has publicly stated that he wishes to remain governor of Maryland, saying that he still has work to do.
