Harris says Buttigieg was her ‘first choice’ for 2024 running mate but the pairing was too risky
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- In her upcoming memoir “107 Days,” the former vice president reveals Pete Buttigieg was her first choice for running mate in 2024.
- Harris writes that pairing with Buttigieg, a gay man, was ‘too big of a risk,’ citing concerns about how voters would react to two barrier-breaking candidates.
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she would have picked Pete Buttigieg as her running mate last year but America wasn’t ready for the pairing, according to an excerpt of her new book.
Harris writes in an excerpt of “107 Days” published Wednesday in the Atlantic that former President Biden’s transportation secretary was her “first choice,” adding that he “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man.”
“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,” she writes.
Her thoughts on selecting a running mate come as potential 2028 contenders begin traveling the U.S. in the early days of the second Trump administration.
In the book excerpt, she writes about her love of working with Buttigieg and her friendship with him and his husband, but that the two of them on the Democratic ticket would have been too risky.
“And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness,” she writes.
Barabak: ‘I think it was recklessness’: Harris criticizes Biden’s late exit from 2024 campaign
In her new book about her 107-day run for president, Kamala Harris suggests that President Biden was more hindrance than helpmate.
It wasn’t immediately clear at what point she decided against Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve. Buttigieg emerged as a national political figure during his 2020 presidential run in which he finished atop the Iowa caucuses.
The Associated Press didn’t immediately hear back from a spokesperson for Buttigieg.
After Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July 2024 following a disastrous debate performance, Harris was left to head up the Democratic ticket.
She picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate after his attack line against former President Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely. They ultimately lost.
Harris’ book, whose title is referring to the length of her condensed presidential campaign, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster on Tuesday.
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