This article was originally published by Vogue.
When President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his 2024 reelection campaign just over a week ago, the Democrats’ path to the White House in November suddenly seemed a lot less straightforward. Yet a promising successor quickly emerged in Vice President Kamala Harris, who secured the backing of enough delegates to technically win her party’s presidential nomination just a day later.
Now, an important question remains: Who might Harris pick as her running mate?
Below, find everything you need to know about Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, all of whom are rumored to be contenders for the VP slot if Harris is, indeed, able to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Tim Walz
Prior to being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018, Walz represented the state’s 1st congressional district, and—before that—served in the Army National Guard for 24 years. (He is also a former educator.) As governor, Walz has a strikingly progressive record, having overseen, among other things, the legalization of recreational marijuana in Minnesota, the implementation of universal background checks, and the protection of gender-affirming services and care throughout the state.
Kelly and his wife, Gwen, share two children.
Mark Kelly
Kelly has served as the junior US senator from Arizona since 2020. Prior to that, his career included several combat missions during the Gulf War, along with space missions as an astronaut with NASA. As a politician, the causes he’s championed include abortion rights, protection of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and gun control, the latter of which took on painful resonance in Kelly’s personal life after his wife, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt in Tucson in January 2011. Since the shooting, Kelly and Giffords have devoted much of their time to the fight for increased gun control in the US, cofounding the Giffords advocacy and research group in 2013.
Kelly shares two adult daughters, Claire and Claudia, with his first wife, Amelia.
Andy Beshear
Beshear was elected governor of Kentucky in 2019, following in the footsteps of his father, Steve, the governor from 2007 to 2015. Holding a degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, Beshear drew criticism early in his legal career for representing the developers of Kentucky’s controversial Bluegrass Pipeline. Later on, however, as Kentucky’s attorney general, he developed a reputation for filing lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for their role in the state’s opioid epidemic. During his tenure as governor, Beshear has prioritized rural abortion access, voting rights for Black Americans, and increased pay for teachers.
Beshear and his wife, social worker Britainy Beshear, have a son and a daughter.
Roy Cooper
Cooper’s current tenure as governor of North Carolina was preceded by nearly two decades as the state’s attorney general. His political career began in earnest in 1986, with his election to represent the 72nd district in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Decades later, in 2016, Cooper beat out GOP incumbent Pat McCrory in their gubernatorial race, making him the first candidate to defeat a sitting governor in North Carolina’s history. Politically, Cooper has devoted himself to the cause of statewide Medicaid expansion in addition to emphasizing the importance of issues like criminal-justice reform and trans rights within the larger Democratic state agenda.
Cooper is married to Kristin Cooper, a guardian and advocate for children in foster care in North Carolina. The couple share three daughters.
Josh Shapiro
Shapiro, the current governor of Pennsylvania, began his political career on Capitol Hill, successively working for former Michigan senator Carl Levin; former Rep. Peter Deutsch of Florida; former New Jersey senator Robert Torricelli; and former Rep. Joe Hoeffel of Pennsylvania. In 2004, he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he would remain until 2012. As a state representative, he backed Barack Obama’s presidential bid as early as in 2007, when Hillary Clinton was still the prominent favorite for the Democratic nomination. Later, as attorney general of Pennsylvania, his achiements included leading a two-year grand jury investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania.
Shapiro married his high school sweetheart, Lori, in 1997. They share four children.
