Shapiro’s bubble bursts
By Lowman S. Henry
Real Clear Wire
At the beginning of the selection process to join Kamala Harris on the 2024 presidential ticket, Gov. Josh Shapiro was viewed as the front-runner. Being a popular governor of a must-win battleground state, Shapiro was an obvious choice.
And then the wheels fell off the bandwagon.
The rest of the country learned what those of us in Penn’s Woods already knew: Shapiro’s image far outpaced his actual performance. His tightrope act on key issues resulted in drawing fire from both sides of the ideological divide.
While attacks from conservatives were expected, it was the Left that doomed Shapiro’s chances of being on the Harris ticket. In particular, the Biden-Harris Administration is already struggling with its handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The horrific terrorist attack that Hamas unleashed last October, and Israel’s subsequent campaign to stomp out Hamas, ignited a firestorm of protest in this country.
The issue already put Shapiro, who is Jewish and has admirably been a staunch defender of Israel, on tender hooks. A commentary he wrote decades ago while a college student labeling Palestinians as incapable of living in peace resurfaced, further inflaming the pro-Palestinian Left.
That issue alone doomed Shapiro’s candidacy, but there were and are other problems. He has rhetorically supported education freedom and school choice, while at the same time vetoing legislation designed to provide minority children in underperforming school districts with new education options. Saying one thing and doing another typically does not work well and in this case his words rattled the Democratic Party’s labor union base while simultaneously earning the ire of education freedom advocates.
Meanwhile, his failure to adequately address a sexual harassment scandal involving one of his cabinet secretaries drew opposition from feminist groups. To this day, Shapiro has been less than transparent over what occurred and made matters worse by insulting the female President Pro Tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate.
The cherry on the sundae came over the weekend when news broke that U.S. Sen. John Fetterman had warned Harris against picking Shapiro because of his overt ambition and reputation for throwing even allies under the bus if it suited his political goals.
Aside from selecting a running mate who is capable of assuming the presidency on a moment’s notice, the first and foremost qualification of a vice-presidential candidate is to do no harm. It became clear that while Shapiro may have given a boost to Harris’ chances of winning battleground Pennsylvania, he would have enraged key Democratic constituencies.
And while Minnesota likely would have ended up in the Democratic column anyway, Governor Tim Walz is a plain vanilla candidate who brings little or no baggage to the ticket. Voters rarely make their decision based on who is running for vice president, so the harm Shapiro would have done greatly outweighed whatever electoral advantage he would have brought to the ticket in Pennsylvania.
Shapiro’s dalliance with the vice presidency will have a lasting impact on Pennsylvania politics. Prior to the past few weeks, he was viewed as the prohibitive favorite to win re-election in 2026. State government receives precious little coverage outside of the Capitol region, so his PR machine has been able to carefully manage perceptions. But the vice-presidential vetting process uncovered significant problems for Shapiro among his base constituencies.
If nothing else, the vice-presidential exercise has greatly increased the value of the 2026 Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Lowman S. Henry is chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal and American Radio Journal. His e-mail address is lhenry@lincolninstitute.org.
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