FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris, right, next to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, speaks during a plenary session of the US-ASEAN Summit, May 13, 2022, at the State Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Harris says Buttigieg was her ‘first choice’ for 2024 running mate but the pairing was too risky
WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she would have picked Pete Buttigieg as her running mate last year but America wasn’t ready for the pairing, according to an excerpt of her new book.
FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris, right, next to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, speaks during a plenary session of the US-ASEAN Summit, May 13, 2022, at the State Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she would have picked Pete Buttigieg as her running mate last year but America wasn’t ready for the pairing, according to an excerpt of her new book.
Harris writes in an excerpt of published Wednesday in The Atlantic that former President Joe Biden鈥檚 transportation secretary was her 鈥渇irst choice,” adding that he 鈥渨ould have been an ideal partner 鈥 if I were a straight white man.”
鈥淏ut we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let鈥檚 just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk,” she writes.
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Her thoughts on selecting a running mate come as potential 2028 contenders begin traveling the U.S. in the early days of the second Trump administration.
In the book excerpt, she writes about her love of working with Buttigieg and her friendship with him and his husband, but that the two of them on the Democratic ticket would have been too risky.
鈥淎nd I think Pete also knew that 鈥 to our mutual sadness,” she writes.
It wasn’t immediately clear at what point she decided against Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves. Buttigieg emerged as a national political figure during his 2020 presidential run in which he finished atop the Iowa caucuses.
The Associated Press didn鈥檛 immediately hear back from a spokesperson for Buttigieg.
After Biden of the presidential race in July 2024 following , Harris was left to head up the Democratic ticket.
She picked Minnesota as her running mate against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance 鈥 鈥淭hese guys are just weird鈥 鈥 spread widely. They ultimately
Harris鈥 book, whose title is referencing the length of her condensed presidential campaign, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster on Tuesday.
