This interview aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
SARAH: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will not be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential election. That title, as the Harris campaign announced Tuesday, goes to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. But Shapiro spent much of the last few weeks in the spotlight of the veepstakes. Here to talk about this we have WVIA’s Roger Dupuis and Borys Krawczeniuk who have both been covering the Shapiro speculation.
Borys and Roger, welcome to Morning Edition.
ROGER: Good morning, Sarah.
BORYS: Morning.
SARAH: Roger, my first question is for you since you've been covering Shapiro's rising political star, at least in the context of Pennsylvania. What are the implications now that he is not going to be the vice presidential nominee?
ROGER: It's interesting. He put out a statement yesterday in which he said he is all in, that he is going to help his friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz defeat Donald Trump, as he puts it. What I think is interesting is that there was a lot of talk, even before the "veepstakes" of Shapiro being a potential candidate for 2028. I think this does now, maybe, cast a cloud on that a little bit. So if Kamala Harris were to win in November and then potentially run again in '28, would Shapiro consider a primary challenge against a sitting president? That's typically not done. So I think it clouds his presidential future a little bit. Then there's the question of whether or not he gets a cabinet position, and these things are all open to discussion.
SARAH: And now Borys, how do you think the actual pick, Tim Walz, is going to play with voters in Pennsylvania?
BORYS: He should do fine in Pennsylvania. He's really about locking down Michigan and Wisconsin with the way he talks. Pennsylvania is going to be Shapiro's turf and Shapiro will probably bring it home. The numbers for Harris have improved here, Shapiro is a very good campaigner and he'll probably spend a lot of time here, but he also could go to a few other states too.
SARAH: Now with Shapiro out of the mix as far as the campaign goes, what is Pennsylvania's role going to be going forward in this election?
BORYS: It's the most important state for Democrats. They can't win the election without winning Pennsylvania. That's why Shapiro is going to be so important. I don't know that he would be interested in a cabinet post unless it's closer to the end of his term.
SARAH: Now, Roger, when you were doing this story about the "veepstakes" and Shapiro being at the top of that short list, there was a lot of excitement that you were hearing from folks about him potentially being the vice presidential pick. What do you think happened between then and today?
ROGER: We may never fully know. But if you're paying attention to the culture, the zeitgeist, I think one of the things that was raised was Shapiro's position on Israel. I think that was a concern for a lot of younger, more left-leaning Democrats who are pro-Gaza, and it certainly was showing up on Twitter (X) and in public conversation. I think it was a concern that he was a potentially polarizing candidate on one of the most polarizing issues that potentially could split the party, and I do wonder if Vice President Harris simply didn't want to take that risk.
SARAH: Shapiro has, as governor, spent quite a bit of time up here in our neck of the woods in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Do we think that he will be back here campaigning for Harris or simply pushing his own agenda as governor?
BORYS: He'll be back here with Harris and various surrogates. There'll be people, you know, famous Democrats, maybe some celebrities coming here and he might accompany some of them. He'll be all over the place in Pennsylvania.
SARAH: Northeast Pennsylvania has its own...quirky elections. We still have a primary race that is not yet settled. We're less than 100 days out, so what do you think these 100 days are going to be looking like here?
BORYS: As far as the 117th State House district, that should be done by the end of August. I would think that the final ruling in the Supreme Court will come down, it won't change the outcome, and Mike Cabell the state representative who is the incumbent has to decide whether or not he's going to be asking for a recount.
If he asks for a recount, that'll take a week or so. By the end of the month, we should know. And then that won't be a race in the fall because there's no Democratic candidates.
The big races that will be contested will be the 118th District, which is a house district that straddles the Luzerne and Lackawanna County borders. Jim Haddock is the incumbent. He's being challenged by McKayla Kathio. Then there's the 120th district between Brenda Pugh, who's kind of the favorite in that race, against Fern Leard, who ran two years ago as the Democratic nominee and lost.
And the 121st, which the Republicans are trying to make competitive- it's a very heavily Democratic district and loves, seems to love Eddie Day Pashinski, the incumbent - with a guy named Dino Disler.
The Commonwealth Leaders Fund is heavily funding the 118th opposition to Haddock and the 121st support of Dino Disler.
The big races will be the congressional races, the 8th Congressional District race between Matt Cartwright and Rob Bresnahan, the 7th between Ryan Mackenzie and the incumbent Susan Wild and, of course, our U.S. Senate race between Dave McCormick and Bob Casey. Those will be the big highlights, and you're going to see a wave of television advertising like we've never seen before. It's already started, and it's just going to intensify in the next three months.
SARAH: Now, from a rhetorical standpoint as far as candidates coming here, especially to Scranton - Scranton was meaningful for Joe Biden, but I'm wondering what you think Scranton's role will be with Harris at the top of the ticket.
BORYS: Very interesting question. That remains to be seen. She'll be here, she has to come here. Lackawanna County is one of the few solidly Democratic counties, so she'll have to come back and lock down those votes. We're going to get at least one visit. Shapiro will spend a lot of time in Luzerne County, and he may bring her here to help with the vote in Luzerne County. Biden did better in Luzerne County in 2020 than Hillary did in 2016. So we're going to see the Democrats are still slightly ahead in Luzerne County, solidly ahead in Lackawanna County- although not like they were. There's lots of Democratic votes here that they're going to fight about, conservative Democrats, so we're going to see the candidates a lot.
ROGER: And what's important with Shapiro was he did something that no Democrat has done in some time which is he carried Luzerne County.
BORYS: That's right. Twice.
SARAH: So, sure to be a busy 100 or so days for all of us. Borys and Roger, thank you very much.
ROGER: Thank you.
