With Kamala Harris announcing Tuesday that her running mate would be Tim Walz, reports came out that Trump and his campaign preferred Walz over the Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro.
Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes will be crucial for this upcoming election. The Trump campaign felt that having to go against Shapiro on the ticket would not bode well for his chances to take the US’s biggest swing state.
In addition to that, Shapiro does have some more moderate views in comparison to the other candidates for Vice President. The biggest of those is his ideologies on school choice. Having someone like that in their corner would also be beneficial for the Democrats and would hurt Trump’s chances in November.
Shapiro was also the only Jewish person to be a possible candidate for Harris. Trump’s campaign brought to light Shapiro’s views on Israel vs Palestine which is opposed by the progressives. They even went as far as to give him the nickname “Genocide Josh.”
An anonymous Trump adviser told The Bulwark, “Where we could, we amplified the leftists on Twitter. We fed Shapiro oppo to the media. We did what we could to create more noise and discontent…. we didn’t do that with Tim Walz”.
