The US Vice President, Kamala Harris, is set to name her running-mate on Tuesday before the two step out on a five-day swing through America’s hottest battleground states, three months before the presidential election.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has swung into action since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, smashing fundraising records and wiping out the leads built up by Republican rival Donald Trump.
According to a US senator and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democratic rising star, is said to have been considered the favorite to join Harris as her vice-presidential pick, ahead of several other state governors.
It was reported on Monday that Harris had narrowed one of the most consequential choices of her political career to Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and would likely make her decision public in a video announcement.
Less than a day before their swing state journey, Harris was maintaining the suspense about her running mate, telling supporters in a text message Monday evening that “I have not made my decision yet.”
The 59-year-old and her newly minted deputy will hold a rally Tuesday at Temple University in Philadelphia before hitting Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Saturday.
She was also intending to hold events in battlegrounds North Carolina on Thursday and Georgia on Friday, but local media outlets reported that a tropical storm battering southeastern states had forced their postponement. There was no response from the Harris campaign on a request for details.
