Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has canceled his weekend travel plans amid mounting speculation that he is the running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, who became the de facto Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, is set to hold a campaign rally with her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Her VP pick is expected to be announced at some point before the rally.
While other potential candidates like Senator Mark Kelly and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have also been vetted by the Harris campaign, some have suggested that Shapiro is now the favorite due to the campaign’s decision to stage the first rally featuring the full ticket in Philadelphia.
Speculation about Shapiro’s future accelerated on Thursday after the governor suddenly called off a planned fundraising trip to the wealthy Long Island, New York, community the Hamptons.
“The Governor’s trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee,” Shapiro Press Secretary Manuel Bonder said in a statement emailed to Newsweek. “His schedule has changed and he is no longer traveling to the Hamptons this weekend.”
Rumors about Shapiro have been rampant this week, including suggestions that Wall Street donors have been told to make campaign contributions by the weekend to avoid a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that bars some in the financial industry from donating to tickets featuring sitting governors.
On Wednesday, Philadelphia Magazine political writer Ernest Owens claimed that Philadelphia Democrats have already come to the conclusion that Shapiro has been selected in a post to X, formerly Twitter.
“I’m hearing from Philly Democratic Party members at their weekly luncheon today that Josh Shapiro is going to be Kamala Harris’s VP pick and that local unions pulled for him,” Owens wrote. “Apparently, her campaign is trying to get Wall Street to pour more money before announcing him.”
Shapiro is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party and managed to win Pennsylvania, a swing state that is considered key to Democratic hopes of winning in November, by nearly 15 points over his Republican opponent in 2022.
However, some have warned that the governor’s support for school vouchers and his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—he is Jewish and has denounced protests of Israel’s military actions in Gaza as antisemitic—could complicate Harris’ hopes of winning over some progressive voters.
Shapiro has also been accused of participating in an alleged coverup of sexual harassment by one of his advisers, with a women’s group demanding that the governor “do more to ensure the safety and dignity of employees, volunteers and constituents in his office” earlier this week.
