After President Joe Biden announced that he’d end his re-election campaign, attention immediately turned to who will replace him on the ticket.
Biden quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, prompting a cavalcade of prominent Democrats across the country to follow suit. The decision of who the next Democratic nominee will be ultimately rests with the party’s delegates at the national convention in Chicago next month.
But if Harris does unify the party behind her, she’ll be in need of a running mate.
She hasn’t said anything publicly about whom she would consider as a running mate. But here are some of the top names Democrats have floated as potential Harris vice presidential contenders:
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
Beshear, 46, brings to the ticket all the political benefits of a Southern Democrat who has won convincingly in a conservative state on a pro-reproductive-rights message, as well as a generation shift.
Beshear entered the national conversation following his re-election victory in Kentucky in November, when he by 5 percentage points a state that Biden had lost by 26 points in 2020.
His win was largely the product of the unique brand he built in ruby red Kentucky, effectively separating himself from the national party by focusing on state issues. Prominently, he touted the state’s economic progress and his response to natural disasters, including devastating floods. At the same time, he leaned into health care and education — and most heavily his support for abortion rights.
Beshear endorsed Harris for president during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. Asked about being a potential running mate, he responded, “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.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Buttigieg, 42, came seemingly out of nowhere when he rocketed to the top of Democrats’ crowded 2020 presidential field, wowing primary voters with his beyond-his-years intelligence, personal story and rhetorical chops.
Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, beat out far more established rivals to win the Iowa caucuses but struggled with voters of color and dropped out of the race to endorse Biden, helping consolidate support around him. In the Biden administration, Buttigieg has been one of Biden’s most visible and capable surrogates, often going on TV to speak on behalf of the administration, especially on transportation policy.
Buttigieg, an openly gay Navy veteran, is raising twins with his husband, Chasten, who has become a cultural figure in his own right on the left. Given his native Indiana’s conservative lean, Buttigieg has been rumored to be considering higher office in other states, such as Michigan, where Chasten is from.
Buttigieg said in a statement that Biden is “among the best and most consequential presidents in American history,” and he endorsed Harris.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper
Cooper, 67, would bring a Southern Democrat with a strong winning track record and political crossover appeal to the ticket. He won both his races for governor in years Trump carried North Carolina at the presidential level.
As governor, Cooper has been a champion of abortion rights in a state where Republicans enjoy close to a supermajority in the Legislature. While he has vetoed several anti-abortion bills, some of them have been overridden by the Legislature, including a ban at about 12 weeks of pregnancy that went into effect in July 2023. He has also focused heavily on expanding Medicaid, and last year he signed a law after Republican lawmakers got on board and passed bills through both chambers.
Cooper has at times made little secret of his flirtation with higher office. In an interview with NBC News in March, he said, “I love public service, I think I have more in the tank, and I will see what options I have after I leave office.”
Cooper, who wasn’t able to run for re-election this year due to term limits, threw his support behind Harris in a post on X after Biden dropped out.
Asked about the possibility of joining Harris on the ticket on “Morning Joe” on Monday, Cooper said, “I appreciate people talking about me, but I think the focus right now needs to be on her this week, and she needs to concentrate on making sure that she secures his nomination and gets the campaign ready to go.”
Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has won twice statewide in Arizona, a historically red state that is now ultracompetitive. He won a special election to the Senate in 2020, when control of Congress was decided by wafer-thin margins. He won again in 2022, defying GOP expectations of a red wave during a Democratic president’s midterm election.
Kelly is a former astronaut with a reputation for pragmatism, and his political talents have been noticed. In the Senate, he has leaned in on local issues like water conservation and microchip manufacturing. He’s the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in 2011 and has gone on an inspiring journey that includes becoming a prominent gun safety advocate. Republican operatives have privately lamented that Kelly is Teflon with voters.
He’s the type of candidate the GOP might have a hard time rallying against. Kelly has also managed to navigate a divide between Arizona progressives and moderates that bedeviled fellow Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent who is retiring after one term.
Kelly endorsed Harris to replace Biden on the top of the ticket in a statement Sunday.
Retired Adm. William McRaven
Allies of Harris are already vetting retired Adm. William McRaven, a source told NBC News.
The 68-year-old retired four-star admiral is most well-known for organizing and overseeing the special operation that killed Osama bin Laden as head of Joint Special Operations Command in 2011. He later spent four years as chancellor of the University of Texas system before retiring in 2018.
In the years since, he has often emerged as a vocal critic of Trump, particularly on national security issues. (Trump went after McRaven in 2018, saying he should have caught bin Laden sooner).
McRaven is also famous for a 2014 University of Texas commencement speech about his 10 lessons for living a meaningful life (one of them was “make your bed,” a to-the-point item that helped make video of the speech go viral).
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore
Moore — a 45-year-old Army combat veteran and Rhodes Scholar — had been a political newcomer before his bid for governor. But his 32-percentage-point win — which made him just the third elected Black governor ever — as well as his personal story (his father died when he was a child, prompting moves and instability) and his youth helped quickly make him a rising star in the Democratic Party.
His name had been floated as a potential contender in 2028 — but it’s not impossible that Democrats see Moore’s personal story and his electoral success as too good to pass up in the current moment.
Moore has less experience than most of the other names on this list, but a recent bridge collapse in Baltimore propelled him into a high-profile disaster response role.
Moore, in a statement posted to X Monday, endorsed Harris. Later Monday, he told reporters in Washington, “I have no interest in the job” when asked whether he’d accept an offer to be Harris’ running mate.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Newsom, 56, has a long history with Harris going back to their days coming up in San Francisco politics together. Only three years apart in age, they have shared several key advisers and donors over the years and had parallel career arcs — an experience that has made them allies and, at times, rivals, with Newsom seen as somewhat to Harris’ left politically.
Newsom was mayor of San Francisco when Harris was the city’s district attorney. And they were both elected to statewide office the same year, 2010, when she became attorney general and Newsom became lieutenant governor.
A people person to his core, Newsom is an ambitious and hard-working political operator, drawing on deep networks of wealthy supporters from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and California’s wine country — before politics, he founded a boutique winery with a billionaire heir to the Getty family, the benefactors of one of Los Angeles’ premier art museums. More recently, he has built a large national following as a progressive leader.
But he and Harris’ shared California roots could also present a legal hurdle, because the Constitution mandates that the president and that vice president hail from different states.
Newsom endorsed Harris Sunday evening.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
Pritzker, 59, was an active Biden campaign surrogate, traveling to battleground states to stump for him. He founded a nonprofit committee, Think Big America, to advocate for abortion rights and to combat extremism, with a focus on battleground states.
Pritzker, a second-term governor who is popular in the state, has been outspoken about protecting women’s reproductive rights and has held up Illinois as a beacon for women seeking access to care. Pritzker has signed a host of progressive initiatives into law, including a ban on assault weapons, ghost guns and switches; an increase in the minimum wage; a measure to enshrine abortion protections into law; and measures to legalize cannabis and expunge records. He has invested in early childhood education, working toward universal preschool in the state.
Pritzker has also demonstrated considerable political savvy, having landed the 2024 Democratic National Convention in his state after repeated lobbying. Pritzker is widely considered to be a future presidential contender. As a billionaire who has self-financed his campaigns in the past, he is positioned to effortlessly step into a national campaign and immediately be flush with cash.
Pritzker endorsed Harris on Monday.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Shapiro, 51, brings to the table a substantial record of outperforming other Democrats in the most pivotal of swing states, Pennsylvania. Shapiro ran ahead of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton when he ran for attorney general and outperformed Biden when he won in a landslide in his 2022 race for governor.
Shapiro first was elevated onto the national scene as state attorney general for a high-profile investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and fighting to defend his state’s election after the 2020 vote as former President Donald Trump battled to overturn it. Now, he’s dealing with perhaps the most important moment of his political career as he handles the fallout from the attempted assassination of Trump, which took place in his state.
He enjoyed a relatively high level of support from Republicans in his 2022 run compared to other Democrats, and he maintains decent approval ratings across the aisle.
Shapiro said in a statement Sunday that he is backing Harris for president.
Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia
Before he entered national politics, Warnock, 54, had been the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — enjoying the influence and historical importance of speaking from the pulpit of the church of Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most storied in America.
Since then, he has been repeatedly put to the electoral test in a key battleground state. Warnock has been on the ballot five times since 2020: one Democratic primary, two general elections and two runoffs — and he has finished first each time.
He was the first Black person elected senator from Georgia — and his elevation to a national ticket would most likely energize Black voters across the U.S., who polls show had been flocking away from Biden.
A major drawback to Warnock’s leaving the Senate, however, is that Democrats would lose the seat if he were on a winning presidential ticket. Under Georgia law, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, would appoint a successor, and he would be certain to appoint a Republican — throwing into further question Democrats’ ability to maintain their narrow majority.
Warnock said he was “proud to endorse” Harris in a statement Sunday night.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
Walz, the 60-year-old two-term governor of Minnesota, could help the Democratic ticket shore up support in the upper Midwest, where the electoral votes from so-called “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan will be critical in deciding the 2024 election.
Having Walz on the ticket could also help draw progressive voters back into the fold. Walz has utilized his time as the state’s top official to advance a litany of progressive policies, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access — a record that would be likely to burnish the leftist credentials of the ticket.
Walz praised Biden in a statement Sunday evening, but has not yet commented on Harris’ campaign.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Whitmer, 52, would offer the ticket a Midwestern governor who was re-elected to a second term by a healthy margin after she emerged as a Trump foil. She was onstage at an event in Detroit in 2020, when Biden presented himself as a “bridge” to Whitmer and other younger leaders. She eventually cracked his shortlist for vice president.
During the early days of the Covid pandemic, Whitmer’s criticism of the federal response drew Trump’s rage. He branded her, derisively, as “the woman from Michigan.” Later in 2020, the FBI scuttled a plot to kidnap her by men who were angry about her Covid shutdowns.
Whitmer is also known for folksiness and colorful language. “Fix the damn roads!” was the rallying cry for her first campaign for governor. Fight Like Hell is the name of her political action committee. And she has embraced the nickname “Big Gretch,” which was popularized by a Detroit rapper.
Whitmer has said she wouldn’t run for president this year. On Monday, she endorsed Harris in a statement, and later told local Lansing outlet WLNS 6 News that she wouldn’t accept an offer to be Harris’ running mate if it were offered.
“No, I’m not planning to go anywhere,” Whitmer said when asked whether she’d accept such an offer. “I am not leaving Michigan.”
CORRECTION: (July 22, 2024, 11:46 am ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Shapiro was elected governor. It was in 2022, not 2020.
