Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during a Harris campaign event in Ambler, Pennsylvania, July 29. Photo by Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

By Lauren Markoe November 6, 2024

As Democrats licked their wounds on Wednesday, some pointed at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, saying, “she should have picked him.”

Meaning: If Vice President Kamala Harris had tapped Shapiro, an observant and proudly pro-Israel Jew, as her running mate instead of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, she might have won Pennsylvania, the swing state with the most electoral votes. She might not have lost Zionists concerned about the war in Gaza to former President Donald Trump. She might even have won.

As writer Daniella Greenbaum Davis posted to the social platform X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday: “If Kamala had chosen Josh Shapiro this night might have gone very differently.”

Shapiro was one of the top contenders to become Harris’ running mate, and not only for his popularity in a critical swing state. Shapiro, whose motto is “get sh– done,” had impressed many beyond Pennsylvania for a practical approach exemplified in the quick repair of a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia in 2023.

Some called his Jewishness and vocal support for Israel a liability, especially after a semester of heated pro-Palestinian campus protests across the nation. He rejected accusations that antisemitism had any role in quashing his chances. Others suggested that he turned the job down, preferring to top the ticket himself in the future.

This post-election quarterbacking about Shapiro persists even as many experts caution that they have yet to analyze reams of data and otherwise do a proper election postmortem before they can pinpoint missteps.

“We’re not even up from shiva yet,” Jarrod Bernstein, former President Barack Obama’s liaison to the American Jewish community, said in an interview Wednesday.

Bernstein, like most others who have spent years working in Democratic politics, said that a Harris-Shapiro ticket would likely not have made a meaningful difference. Political experts generally agree that the vice presidential nominee is rarely a key factor in the outcome of a presidential race. And Trump’s victory was decisive: He is on track to win all seven of the key battleground states as well as the popular vote, something no Republican has done since 2004.

The reasons for Harris’ loss reflect a deep polarization in the nation, “far more systemic than any one decision of the campaign and, frankly, goes well beyond any campaign decision,” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Trump’s campaign “appealed to a huge portion of the country,” Spitalnick noted. “So it’s really important to understand it through that lens.”

But the speculation about what could have been with Shapiro on the ticket is likely to continue: He is still the governor of the swing state with the most electoral votes (19); enjoys strong approval ratings; and won praise for a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Many see Shapiro, 51, as a strong presidential contender in 2028.

Shapiro vs. Taylor Swift

Enthusiasm for Shapiro, who made the governor’s mansion kosher and sends his kids to Jewish day school, rests largely on his popularity in Pennsylvania, a state whose mix of urban, suburban and rural areas makes it something of a proxy for the country as a whole.

He was first elected to statewide office, attorney general, in 2017, and in 2022 trounced Republican Doug Mastriano, 57% to 42%, for the governorship, beating predictions and campaign polls.

In September 2024, one survey showed Shapiro’s approval ratings not only running ahead of both Harris and Trump, but also of Taylor Swift, who was born and raised in the state. Nearly 60% of voters polled strongly or somewhat approved of Shapiro’s leadership.

Outside of Pennsylvania, many voters declared Shapiro a better choice as soon as Harris picked Walz in early August, and those voices echoed as polls showed her and Trump in a virtually dead heat through the fall.

She “blew one big opportunity to tack to the center” when she passed over Shapiro, pollster Nate Silver wrote in September.

That idea resurfaced in the wake of Harris’ loss. With the results showing that voters took a step to the right — Trump increased his share of the vote compared to 2020 even in many blue states — Shapiro to some seemed a smarter choice than more left-leaning Walz. The thought is still often bound up with the idea that antisemitism factored into Harris’ choice of a running mate.

“Too soon to point out that Josh Shapiro would’ve been a better choice for VP and caving to the antisemites in the progressive coalition was a bad idea?” a user on X named Jonathan Greenberg asked in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

But even before Harris picked Walz, many expressed dismay over a campaign to thwart Shapiro but not non-Jewish candidates for the position who were also very pro-Israel. Still others said it wasn’t just Shapiro’s support for Israel, but his criticism of the pro-Palestinian protest movement, that spurred some Democrats to oppose him.

Jeremy Kazzaz, a Democratic lawyer who started a group to counter antisemitism in Pittsburgh, said he wouldn’t pin Harris’ loss on the choice of a running mate — or any single factor. Instead, he called Tuesday’s results “a reflection of the illiberalism that’s been welcomed” into the Democratic party.

“That makes Trump look like a better choice to some everyday Americans,” he said.

Bernstein, the former Obama official, said speculation about how a different decision might have yielded a different outcome is generally of limited use.

“If Aaron Judge had not gone totally cold in the World Series would the Yankees have won?” he asked rhetorically. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

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