Kamala Harris has revealed that Tim Walz was not her first choice to be her running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
The former vice president, who replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee in last year’s election, has detailed in her upcoming book, 107 Days, what took place behind the scenes during her whirlwind campaign. She said she would have picked Pete Buttigieg, but that the American public was not ready for the pairing.
Why It Matters
Harris became the Democratic candidate to run against Republican Donald Trump in 2024 after Biden announced he would withdraw from the race amid concerns over his health and fitness for a second term, following a disastrous debate against Trump.
Simon & Schuster described 107 Days as “a page-turning account” filled with “surprising and revealing insights.”
What To Know
In an excerpt of her book published in The Atlantic on Wednesday, Harris said she wanted Buttigieg, Biden’s former transportation secretary, to be her running mate because she loved working with him and because they were friends. Instead, she chose Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
She wrote that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man.” However, she said that because Buttigieg is gay, she was concerned the American public might not accept him.
“I love Pete,” she wrote. “I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”
She added: “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”
“And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness,” she said.
In other excerpts from the book, Harris said Biden’s initial decision to run for a second term was an example of “recklessness.”
“This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition,” she wrote. “It should have been more than a personal decision.”
What People Are Saying
Mark Shanahan, who teaches American politics at the University of Surrey, told Newsweek: “Hindsight always has 20:20 vision. No possible pick for VP on the Harris ticket was going to tick every box, and Walz was a reasonable choice when she believed her most important battle was for male voters in the Rust Belt. If she had really wanted Buttigieg, she could have demanded him. Perhaps the fact she was talked down by others reflects how weak and rushed her candidacy turned out to be.”
What Happens Next
107 Days will be released by Simon & Schuster on September 23.