Chuck Todd: How Harris can use her VP search to define herself

Building an airplane as it takes off is no way to build an airplane. And yet, sometimes, circumstances dictate that you have no choice but to try.

Of all the potential metaphors to use and abuse in this unprecedented moment, that’s probably the best one. Building a national campaign isn’t easy. It’s also exactly what Kamala Harris and the Democrats are doing with just over 100 days until Election Day.

Harris tried it once herself and experienced some ups but a lot more downs. She’s getting a massive head start this time compared to her 2020 primary campaign, thanks to what has turned into an almost seamless handoff from President Joe Biden to the new de facto Democratic nominee.

The Democratic National Committee seems set on trying to nominate Harris and her eventual running mate in a virtual delegate roll call before the actual convention begins. While I understand some of party leaders’ technical concerns around state laws and waiting until the start of the convention to officially nominate Harris and her running mate, it seems like an unnecessary step given the circumstances. The Democrats should welcome any GOP attempts to block Harris from a state ballot, because voters wouldn’t love the look, because there’s nothing about what the Democrats are doing that’s illegal or even unprecedented.

In fact, it used to be normal for the parties to wait until their conventions to certify their nominees, so while this is an unprecedented situation for the 21st century, it’s not abnormal in the grand scheme of things. And while there was a rush to hurry up and consolidate support behind a new nominee, there is now time to take a breath and start being a tad more methodical.

The question is what Harris does between now and the start of her convention in Chicago. The biggest decision she has to make in this short amount of time is choosing a running mate, and while speed has been the name of the game in the transition from Biden to Harris, there’s no need to rush the choice nearly as fast as they’ve rushed the coronation for the top of the ticket.

If done right, a methodical yet efficient veepstakes could help reintroduce Harris to the country and allow voters — particularly those who start in the skeptical middle — a chance to take a measure of her. Many voters will look at whom she surrounds herself with and whom she wants to associate herself with as ways to see how she’d govern. She’s being handed a gift in some ways with this opportunity to name a running mate. And she needs to use this time to introduce herself on her own terms.

Harris’ challenge isn’t a new issue for sitting vice presidents. Even with months to prepare, vice presidents have always struggled with the burden of being famous without being known. Folks know her name, know her position and perhaps have a singular semi-uninformed hot take (positive or negative) on her — and that’s it. She has to fill in the blanks before the Trump campaign and the GOP fills them in for her. It’s a race to define her.

And that’s why the veepstakes shouldn’t be rushed. This is an opportunity for Americans to get a glimpse at the type of Democrats she wants to run the country. This isn’t just about picking a running mate. This is about setting a tone for the type of politics she intends to practice — how ideology and practicality will weigh against each other, which issues will display her pragmatism and which issues will prompt a fight until the bitter end. Harris can tease out all of these things through a strategic use of the veepstakes process.

With the Olympics starting Friday, there will be a mini-lull in the public’s focus on politics for two weeks. It’s a perfect time for Harris to stage her own contest — a political pentathlon — for a running mate. She doesn’t need to go full “Apprentice,” à la Donald Trump, but she also shouldn’t shy away from media coverage of various candidates.

She can interview candidates whom she may never intend to pick, but she might end up interviewing a future Cabinet secretary or chief of staff.

And she can use the veepstakes to throw some bones to various constituencies. For instance, she ought to have a face-to-face with GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney soon, a meeting that “leaks” in which they talk about their “shared concern about the democracy” and about what role Cheney can play either in her campaign or in the next administration. She never even has to say it’s about the vice presidency (because it won’t be about the vice presidency), but let others speculate. It’s a no-lose virtue signal to the center-right “Never Trumpers.”

Maybe she heads to Dallas for a fundraiser and sits down with businessman Mark Cuban. Again, is it for the VP slot? Let others speculate! But at a minimum, she signals to the business community that she has her own relationships with some interesting folks in their world. Cuban’s got a health care proposal he’s been pushing for years, so there is substance he’d want to sit down with her about.

Do I think Cuban or Cheney would be good running mates for her? Probably not. Both are inexperienced in some of the nuances of Democratic constituency politics (not to mention there are some deep ideological disagreements with Cheney), and the learning curve in this era would be tough. But again, this isn’t just about picking a vice presidential running mate. This is about Harris introducing the country to herself and to folks who could or would be in her kitchen cabinet.

The larger point is this: There is a caricature of Harris that isn’t great for her. Republicans want to take that simple caricature of the San Francisco progressive and make it her permanent political identity. She needs to fight some of the stereotypes about her politics, and there’s no better way to do that than to start having one-on-ones with a broad array of folks who could help reshape any negative narratives some voters might have of her.

Another couple of nontraditional names I’d include on her listening tour of sorts when it comes to building her team: retired military leaders like Adm. Bill McRaven and Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Again, I don’t think either makes sense in a short campaign as an actual running mate. But sending the signal that these are the type of leaders she’s approaching for advice could assuage skeptics in the middle and the center right, the two groups of voters who truly are the swing votes in this election.

Now, I’m focusing on some nontraditional names to serve up to the veepstakes media frenzy — but that doesn’t mean I think Harris should go a nontraditional route for her running mate.

Ultimately, she needs to pick someone she clicks with — i.e., don’t make the mistake Biden made with her. It’s fairly obvious now that the two never really clicked, but Biden sort of boxed himself into picking her with some public and private promises he made during the 2020 campaign. And ultimately, Harris was a “do no harm” pick that ostensibly sent the message that he was giving a nod to the next generation of Democratic leaders after him.

To me, there are three obvious short-listers, and then there’s everybody else. The three candidates who make the most sense to me are Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. All of them would create some perceived ideological balance for Harris, as all appear to be slightly to the right of her politically. All three have demonstrated an ability to win over Trump voters in their campaigns. And if you believe the swing vote is center-right women and college-educated white men, then one of these three would make a lot of sense.

For me, the next set of folks on the so-called shortlist, at least on paper, feel like tier two, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. All three would bring similar skill sets, but they would arguably bring fewer intangibles compared to the trio in my tier one. However, you can’t rule out the possibility Harris simply clicks with one candidate more than anyone else. If that’s the case, she shouldn’t let the electoral map cloud her judgment. Ultimately, if you don’t pick the candidate you’re most comfortable with, you won’t be successful either as a ticket or as an administration.

Turning back to the three I put in my top tier: The one who has the most “pros” when it comes to filling in the deficits Harris brings to the campaign appears to be Kelly. The one issue Trump will pound Harris on is the border. Well, Kelly spent much of his 2022 re-election campaign distancing himself from the Biden-Harris administration on the border, and he was very critical of its policies publicly. Toss in Kelly’s two hard-hitting and high-profile campaigns for the Senate in 2020 and 2022, and he has been tested in a way many of the other candidates on the so-called shortlist haven’t.

Then there’s the résumé: Combat veteran and astronaut are pretty unimpeachable jobs in politics. Throw in his marriage to Gabby Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who basically brought him into politics, and you can see why the “pro” list for Kelly is a bit longer than for anyone else. I laid out the case for Beshear last week, including his experience beating an incumbent governor in 2019, Matt Bevin, who was known as “Trump before Trump.” Now, is there an obvious state he helps in? It depends on whether he could speak to a more rural constituency in the Midwest battlegrounds that chipped away at the Trump margins. It’s possible to do that in governor’s races, harder to do as the No. 2 in a presidential election.

As for Shapiro, ultimately, I think his biggest “con” is that he has been a governor for less than two years. If he were in his second term, he might make more sense. But the one big thing he’s known for so far is his quick fix of I-95 after the partial collapse in Philadelphia last year.

The initial list that’s being bandied about in and around the Harris campaign is a strong list on paper, so she should feel comfortable being methodical about this. Again, there’s no rush; the DNC is creating an artificial deadline (in my opinion) that could force a rushed pick for running mate that ultimately backfires.

Harris should take her time and let the public get to know her governing style and philosophy through the meetings she has with people who may or may not be on the running mate shortlist. At a minimum, she would get a head start on any future transition if she’s fortunate enough to turn this campaign around and pull the upset over Trump.

Vance and second thoughts

It has been just over a week since Trump picked Sen. JD Vance as his running mate, and one can already sense a tinge of regret among some forces in Trump world. Of course, Vance wasn’t a popular choice among the more pragmatic members of the campaign. Those forces wanted either Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin or, frankly, anyone not named Vance. The concern these more pragmatic campaign types had about Vance is that the pick ideologically defines the party in a direction that doesn’t thrill a lot of Republicans. It’s not just the international isolationism; it’s also Vance’s support for more aggressive economic nationalism.

But so far, the Vance rollout has been “meh” at best. His speech wasn’t great at the convention, and it was made worse because he was inexperienced at riding applause to keep the attention of the people who matter the most during convention speeches: the audience at home. He allowed himself to get drawn into too many crowd conversations that simply left viewers out of the loop at times. And it certainly wasn’t much of a stem-winder.

Of course, Trump didn’t pick Vance for the campaign. He picked him to send a message about the future of the party and to put his legacy stamp on its direction.

In the meantime, the campaign is going to have to deploy Vance more strategically, as he fires up the MAGA base and little more than that. The more he gets drawn into the national debate, especially on abortion, the more he’s going to struggle.

Check out this quote he gave to his traveling news corps when he was asked about abortion: “I’m the vice presidential nominee, not the presidential nominee, and if I want my views on abortion to dominate the Republican Party, then I’d run for president. I didn’t and I haven’t. Donald Trump ran for president. And I think that it’s important that as a party we say the voters have decided here. Trump, having won, gets to decide what the party’s platform is … which is an emphasis on states making the decision.”

That’s a great answer for Vance’s 2028 primary campaign as he attempts to win over social conservatives in Iowa and South Carolina. But it’s a terrible answer in a general election.

I admire the honesty of his answer, and it’s a reminder that vice presidents have to defend records they wouldn’t necessarily advocate on their own (Harris is finding out about this herself). But Democrats will use that answer and flip the age script right back on the Trump-Vance ticket. I can easily see Democrats running ads saying that if Trump doesn’t finish his term, Vance would be president and he would pursue an abortion ban. In the same way the Trump campaign wanted to use Biden’s age and Harris’ unpopularity against that ticket (when it existed), now the Democrats have the ammunition to flip the script and do so on an issue that very much animates voters: abortion.