Kamala Harris VP pick expected imminently, Josh Shapiro arrives in Harrisburg; JD Vance traveling to Philly

Political science research is clear: If you’re looking to carry a state’s electoral votes, it won’t help much to pick a vice presidential candidate from there.

Unless, just maybe, the state in question is Pennsylvania, which was decided by around a percentage point in each of the last two presidential elections — and which has a parochial political culture.

As a potential vice presidential candidate, Gov. Josh Shapiro has come under scrutiny for a review his office conducted of one of Philadelphia’s most perplexing death cases while he served as state attorney general.

Conspiracy theories swarmed online over the weekend about Shapiro’s involvement in reviewing the death of Ellen Greenberg. Greenberg, 27, died in her Manayunk apartment in 2011 by 20 stab wounds and the case was ruled a homicide, then switched to suicide.

Gov. Josh Shapiro dodged reporters Monday evening, leaving out a different entrance than usual.

Reporters spent hours staking out the governor’s special elevator and his usual exit from the Capitol. His drivers had sat outside the building for about an hour (one of them with the new state license plate). But after an aide looked at the small scrum of reporters awaiting the governor, the aide climbed into one of Shapiro’s security vehicles and a few minutes later drove away.

The high-stakes battle to become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate is the latest demonstration of deep ideological fault lines in the Democratic party, and no contender for the nomination has borne the brunt of it like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Over the last two weeks, Shapiro — a political moderate with a high approval rating in this critical swing state — has been the target of a decentralized opposition campaign. It’s led largely by progressives who disagree with the governor’s statements about the conflict in the Middle East, his embrace of private-school vouchers, and his office’s handling of a sexual harassment complaint against a former aide.

Usha Vance says her husband’s “childless cat ladies comment” was “a quip made in service” of a bigger point the GOP vice presidential contender was trying to make about American political society, not a slight intended at U.S. citizens without children.

Sen. JD Vance’s wife made the comment Monday during an interview that aired on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”

Ahead of Sen. JD Vance’s Tuesday visit to Philadelphia, the Trump campaign doubled down on messaging about immigration that has been central to the campaign.

Philadelphians have been uniquely impacted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies at the border, the campaign alleged in a press release, adding that Democrats in Pennsylvania had “put out a welcome sign” for undocumented immigrants.

Sen. John Fetterman reportedly put a word in against Gov. Josh Shapiro as a potential running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, bringing national attention to old tensions between the two Pennsylvania officials.

Fetterman and Shapiro have distinctly different styles, and have clashed publicly in the past.

The Pennsylvania Capitol Building was quiet Monday, as the state awaits whether its governor would be chosen as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.

Members of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s staff trickling in and out of the governor’s office were mum about whether Shapiro had been told whether he’d be Harris’ pick. His chief of staff was seen outside on the governor’s balcony taking a phone call.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and four other secretaries of state are imploring Elon Musk to make changes to an artificial intelligence-powered feature on X that incorrectly suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris could not appear on the 2024 presidential ballot because certain deadlines had passed.

In a letter to X’s billionaire owner on Monday, Schmidt, along with the secretaries of state from Minnesota, Michigan, Washington, and New Mexico, wrote that within hours of President Joe Biden withdrawing his reelection bid on July 21, Grok, X’s AI search assistant, falsely stated that ballot deadlines for the presidential election in nine states, including Pennsylvania, had passed, implying incorrectly that changes could no longer to be made to ballots.

As Vice President Kamala Harris weighs who to choose as her running mate in the presidential race, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Monday reiterated her support for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to join the ticket.

"I'm a Philly girl through and through, and if the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers, the Sixers are in the playoffs, I'm rooting for the home team at all costs," Parker said after being asked about the veepstakes during a City Hall news conference on property taxes.

Vice President Kamala Harris is postponing a scheduled trip to Georgia amid the ongoing effects of Tropical Storm Debby.

Harris’ campaign said her stop planned in Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday, was being put off due to the storm.

Running-mate sideshows are nothing new in presidential politics, and the buzz surrounding Josh Shapiro marks at least the third time in the last 40 years that a politician in Pennsylvania, with its robust supply of electoral votes, has surfaced as a vice-presidential possibility.

On June 28, 1984 presumed Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale interviewed Mayor W. Wilson Goode, Philly’s first Black mayor, as a possible running mate. That was the year before the MOVE disaster in which 11 people died and 61 West Philadelphia homes were destroyed.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro didn’t say anything about the status of the vice presidential candidate selection Monday morning as he arrived at the state Capitol in Harrisburg.

“I got nothing for you, man,” the first-term Democrat said and told an Associated Press reporter “have a great day” as he headed into the governor’s offices, flanked by an aide and several state troopers.

'The Avengers' actor and high-profile environmentalist Mark Ruffalo is highlighting a letter from Pennsylvanians and grassroots environmental groups that urges Vice President Kamala Harris to remove Gov. Josh Shapiro from consideration to be her running mate in a post on X Friday evening, citing what the residents call Shapiro's "detrimental" handling of a contaminated water crisis in Dimock, Pa. when he was state attorney general.

Ruffalo is urging the Harris campaign to read the letter addressed to the vice president and her team alleging that Shapiro's AG office did not provide the "bulk" water supply promised to Dimock residents while they were awaiting a water pipeline to be built – an agreed upon remedy to the community's water contaminated by fracking and oiling drilling.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a leader of the national progressive prosecutor movement, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president Sunday, saying in a statement she “will save our democracy from Donald Trump, the MAGA haters, and anyone else who would erase Philadelphians’ votes.”

In the written statement, Krasner referred to Harris a “(reform) prosecutor” – parentheticals and all – lending her approval from a district attorney considered to be one of the most progressive in the country. Harris has at times faced criticism from the left for her tenure as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, with some pointing to her record aggressively prosecuting marijuana-related offenses.

“The Republican Party in Montgomery County is back.”

Christian Nascimento, the chair of the county party, made that declaration last month as rain drizzled over dozens of volunteers and committeepeople in Jenkintown, where the party opened the first of several planned satellite offices in traditionally blue areas.

Philadelphia will be at the center of the political universe Tuesday.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ first rally with her yet-to-be-named running mate will be at Temple University’s 10,000-seat basketball arena on Tuesday, according to a source with knowledge of the planning.

When Vice President Kamala Harris appears for the first time with her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he hopes and plans to be in attendance.

But it’s still unclear what his role will be at that event.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once retrieved a bear that was killed by a motorist and left it in New York’s Central Park with a bicycle on top, sparking a mystery that consumed the city a decade ago.

Kennedy describes the incident in a video that was posted to social media Sunday, adding it will be included in a forthcoming New Yorker article that he expects to be damaging.

One spring day in 1986, Josh Shapiro became a bar mitzvah. Rabbi Aaron Landes told the packed congregation at Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park that there was something special about the boy.

Joshua, Rabbi Landes said, carried himself with “a special dignity that is reflective of a young man with a purpose, a goal.”