By Ron Kampeas and Andrew Lapin
WASHINGTON — One day after President Joe Biden ended his campaign, leading Democrats have coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris — and begun speculating about her running mate. At least two Jewish governors are thought to be top contenders: Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker.
A major-party presidential ticket has featured a Jewish candidate only once, when Joe Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for vice president alongside Al Gore in 2000.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told reporters July 22 that she was not a candidate.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Shapiro represents a swing state.
He has brought his sensibilities as a Jewish day school graduate and parent to the campaign trail and the governor’s mansion. He was sworn in last year on a stack of three Hebrew Bibles.
As state attorney general, he ensured that the state’s votes were counted in the 2020 presidential election. In 2018, he led an into sexual abuse at Catholic institutions in the state.
One Shapiro campaign ad in 2022 focused on his Shabbat observance, and how the break from the workweek helped him cope with the rigors of running for office.
As governor, he has been outspoken about combating threats to Jewish students on his state’s campuses, tussling with the now-former University of Pennsylvania president, Liz Magill, both before and after Oct. 7. He showed up to nosh at a Philadelphia kosher eatery, Goldie, after calls by pro-Palestinian groups to boycott the business.
“What they did was blatant anti-Semitism,” he said then. “They protested in restaurants, simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person. That is the kind of anti-Semitic tropes that we saw in 1930s Germany.”
On Sunday night, CNN anchor John King, who converted to Judaism when he married his CNN colleague Dana Bash, said: “He’s a first-term governor, he’s Jewish, there could be some risks in putting him on the ticket.”
The remark has sparked backlash from some who said that it was anti-Semitic or reflected anti-Semitism among Democrats.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
Beshear is a Democratic governor of a solidly red state. The political acumen that reflects, some Democratic strategists believe, would make him valuable on the national campaign trail even if he can’t turn Kentucky blue.
In his state, the governor’s biggest political battles have hinged on topics like transgender health care and abortion rights; on both issues, the Christian governor who says his “values are grounded in my faith” has found allies among Kentucky’s Jews.
Last year, Beshear vetoed a law banning certain medical procedures for transgender youth, which the Republican-controlled state legislature introduced weeks after the transgender son of the chamber’s only Jewish lawmaker died by suicide; state Republicans overrode his veto.
Beshear opposes his state’s near-total abortion ban, which had been challenged in court by three Jewish women alleging that the law infringed upon their religious freedom rights. A judge threw out the lawsuit in June.
Beshear also has voiced support for Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks. He said that he and his wife’s “prayers go out to the people of Israel” immediately after the attacks.
In December he established a task force to combat anti-Semitism. He pushed the task force to address hostility toward Jews on college campuses in the state.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly
From a swing state, Kelly was an independent prior to registering as a Democrat in 2018. His background as a US Navy captain and NASA astronaut burnished his image among voters prior to his being recruited to run for the Senate in 2020 to replace the late John McCain.
He said recently that conditioning US military aid to Israel would be “appropriate” if Israel cannot do a better job limiting civilian casualties in Gaza.
Kelly is married to former US Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was subject to an assassination attempt.
Kelly co-sponsored the Countering Anti-Semitism Act in the Senate and served on a bipartisan Senate task force for countering anti-Semitism.
After Giffords survived an assassination attempt in 2011, Kelly spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. He has since become an outspoken advocate for gun control.
Kelly has spoken of having a connection to Israel that dates back to his friendship with Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon when the two were stationed in Houston together. Ramon died in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle explosion.
In the Senate, Kelly has been a supporter of Israel and a two-state solution with the Palestinians. He has also said that some of the campus pro-Palestinian protests this spring, including at Arizona colleges, “have become very violent” and that “it’s appropriate for the police to step in” when such protest “turns into unlawful acts.”
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper
Cooper, another Democratic governor of a Republican-leaning state, has signed legislation making North Carolina one of dozens of states that rule out doing business with companies that boycott Israel.
Earlier this year he also signed the SHALOM Act into law, which adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s popular and controversial definition of anti-Semitism for the state. The bill was introduced by a Republican but had bipartisan support.
Cooper has served as a deacon and elder of his Presbyterian church
He has called himself a “good friend” of US Rep. Kathy Manning, a Jewish North Carolina Democrat, a vocal pro-Israel members of Congress who is not running for reelection.
Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker
J.B. Pritzker is the scion of a wealthy Jewish hotelier family long involved in Democratic politics. His sister Penny, a major donor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, was Obama’s commerce secretary and is now Biden’s special envoy for Ukraine’s war-torn economy.
Illinois is solid blue, making a Pritzker pick unlikely to give Harris an electoral map advantage. His silver-spoon background could also hurt his chances with working-class voters.
Pritzker has made billions as an investor. In 2019, just after his first election in the blue state, he cited his antecedents’ impoverished Jewish immigrant roots to explain his politics.