How a Josh Shapiro Vice Presidential Nomination Could Impact the 2024 Election

Twenty years ago, Josh Shapiro was walking door to door in his hometown of Abington, meeting voters on his way to becoming a state representative. Now Shapiro is the governor of Pennsylvania and one of the favorites to be chosen as the Democratic nominee for vice president. If selected, he would be in a fierce race that would quickly raise his profile in a party in turmoil and transition.

President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris — a move many Democrats have since echoed — leaves open a crucial decision about who her presumptive running mate should be. The emergence of new faces to lead the Democratic Party will have implications not just for the November election but for the political pecking order for years to come.

“I thought there would be more room for chaos than there seems to have been so far, but the Democrats have a knack for finding chaos,” Michael Hagan, an associate professor of political science at Temple University, said of the days since Biden left the race. “That story hasn’t quite been written at this point.”

Shapiro, 51, is high on a shortlist of vice presidential candidates that includes Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland.

Historically, the choice of vice presidential candidates has been about shoring up the party ticket in swing states where big-name leaders can help sway voters on the fence. Harris, a former senator from deep-blue California, went against that grain in 2020 when Biden defeated Donald Trump. Her background as a law-and-order prosecutor was seen as a way to connect with voters in multiple states where the Biden campaign thought he needed help.

The strategy Democrats choose this year could reflect a desire to either take a bite out of multiple states or to put their chips on a candidate they believe can deliver the swing states needed to defeat Trump. The party hopes its vice presidential nominee can do both, but the influence is often more symbolic than decisive on the national level.

“The research suggests that the vice presidential choice is not very influential in terms of the votes cast by ordinary Americans and that it rarely has much impact on the outcome of presidential elections,” said Hagan, who was previously director of the Center for Public Interest Polling at the Eagleton Institute of Politics in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “It can make a difference in a particular state — the nominee’s home state.”

In May, a New York Times poll found that Shapiro was popular with a third of those who supported Trump in previous Pennsylvania elections. When Shapiro was elected governor in 2022, he won with 56% of the vote, defeating Trump-aligned Republican Doug Mastriano. His popularity in Pennsylvania could be the deciding factor.

“In a state where 100,000 votes separate a winner from a loser, that’s possible,” Hagan said. “He would certainly have a bigger impact in Pennsylvania than anyone else the Democratic nominee would pick. It comes down to their calculation of whether Pennsylvania is absolutely at the top of the list of states they need to win, or two or three down the list.”

In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by a margin of just 68,236 votes. Four years later, Biden defeated Trump by 80,544 votes.

“There’s often a lot of debate about whether a VP candidate can deliver his home state’s electoral votes to the ticket,” said Nyron Crawford, who also teaches political science at Temple University. “There is some evidence, however, that this perceived ‘home state advantage’ is not that strong.”

Still, Crawford said Shapiro stands out as a possible outlier. In a February Franklin & Marshall College poll, nearly half of Pennsylvanians said they believe Shapiro is doing an “excellent” or “good” job as governor. That was the highest approval rating for a Pennsylvania governor at that point in their first term since former Republican Tom Ridge. When Shapiro was first elected to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011, it was the first time Republicans had lost control of the board. Shapiro’s record of winning two statewide races — first as attorney general and then as governor — also bolsters the confidence Democrats might have in him as a vice presidential nominee in November.

Relying on poll numbers in an already tumultuous election cycle is a risky business that makes it difficult to gauge how Harris, Shapiro and other candidates are viewed by voters.The 2016 presidential election upended the polling industry, raising doubts about whether polls can accurately capture the sentiments of the voting public. Improvements in data collection and analysis using more sources, including online surveys, helped the industry recover during the 2022 midterm elections, when polls have been historically accurate.

“I still have a fair amount of confidence (in polls), although it can’t be described as anything other than confidence,” Hagan said.

Geography isn’t the only thing to consider when choosing a vice presidential candidate.

“A key element that parties and voters often think about when it comes to vice presidential candidates is ‘ticket balancing,'” Crawford said, explaining that the role could provide a demographic or ideological counterweight to the president.

In that regard, there are questions about Shapiro, particularly about how his Jewishness influences both Democratic and Republican voters.

“There is certainly a lot of anti-Semitism in the United States,” Hagan said. “Most of the people who are inclined to vote against Shapiro because he is Jewish probably have 11 other reasons for voting against Shapiro.

“I think the potential liability that Shapiro would bring (is) that he’s been an outspoken supporter and defender of Israel. The Democrats are thanking their lucky stars that the Israel-Hamas issue has somehow faded from view in recent weeks, and the last thing they want is for that to become an issue again for the convention and the general election.”

Crawford said Shapiro’s position on school choice — crossing party lines to support private school vouchers — is also a curveball in his policy profile.

For Republicans, Trump’s choice of JD Vance was no surprise, given Hagan’s young age and outspoken character.

“I don’t think Ohio is close enough for Vance to make a difference there, but maybe his presentation will benefit Trump somewhere else,” Hagan said. “I suspect he’s an example of the kind of candidate who’s not going to have a big impact in the election.”

Since Sunday, Shapiro has not clearly indicated whether he would accept the invitation to be vice presidential nominee. He joined other Democrats who have backed Harris — a former fellow prosecutor he has known for years — and spoke with her after Biden left the race.

“We’ve only talked about defeating Donald Trump and our collective commitment to that,” Shapiro said Monday, adding that he has confidence Harris will make the right decision.

In May, Shapiro told CBS News that he was not focused on speculation about his run for president in 2028.

“God willing, I’ll be governor for a long time, as long as the good people of Pennsylvania want me,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do here, and I’m focused on that work.”

There are reasons why Shapiro might be reluctant to join a Democratic nomination ticket for 2024, given the uncertainty involved, especially if he has presidential ambitions in the future.

Only one vice presidential candidate on a losing ticket has ever become president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the Democratic nominee for vice president for John W. Davis in the 1920 election, which was won by Republican Warren G. Harding. Roosevelt then ran for president and won in 1932.

Other losing vice presidential candidates, such as Republican Bob Dole in 1976, have not fared well in future presidential elections. Dole lost to Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election. And Walter Mondale, who served as Jimmy Carter’s vice president, lost his bid for the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Hagan does not believe Shapiro would be discouraged by history.

“It doesn’t seem to me that the damage to someone’s national reputation would be so great by losing this presidential election that they would never be heard from again,” Hagan said. “That seems unlikely to me, especially since the bet was on Trump winning.”

Even if Harris or another Democrat were to lose to Trump, Shapiro would still have his job as governor. And if the Democrats win, Shapiro would already have built a national profile that would put him in good position to run for president in 2028 or 2032.

The biggest breakthrough for Democrats is that the weight of Biden’s crumbling political prospects has been lifted. That will be far more important than the vice presidential pick in determining whether voters are motivated to vote for a Democratic candidate.

“The great virtue of what’s happened from the Democratic perspective is that the lack of enthusiasm for Biden is no longer a factor,” Hagan said. “The question of who is actually encouraged or discouraged enough to participate is absolutely critical.”