Was a VP Frontrunner

Josh Shapiro Was a VP Frontrunner. Then His Critics Fought Back.

From school vouchers to campus protests, core Democratic constituencies raised objections to the Pennsylvania governor.

Serena Lin

On Tuesday morning, news began to leak: Vice President Kamala Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate. According to reporting, it had been down to Walz and another rising star in the Democratic party: Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Shapiro was an early favorite for the vice presidential slot. Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are crucial to a Democratic victory in November, and Shapiro is popular in his home state. He won a resounding gubernatorial victory over the Republican Doug Mastriano last year, outperforming Biden’s 2020 win in every county.

But the governor is largely unknown to American voters at large: A July poll found that 6 in 10 adults did not know enough about him to have an opinion. Over the last week or so, as news trickled out, Shapiro was hit with a series of blows that seemed to set back his chances. His introduction to the rest of the nation was not easy—or at least not as smooth as Walz’s. Shaprio is still scheduled to speak with Harris at her Pennsylvania rally this afternoon. And there is a possibility he could take a role in the next administration.

A moderate Democrat, Shapiro leans center on key issues, and, in many ways, his policy positions are unmemorable (with the notable exception of school vouchers, which he supported as part of a strategy to raise education funding overall). Instead, Shapiro has been repeatedly described, in reports and by those who have worked with him, as a shrewd and calculating politician. He has broadcast this approach as a sensible pragmatism, adopting the slogan “Get shit done.” 

Michael Coard, a Philadelphia-based lawyer and columnist, called Shapiro a “political chameleon” who “changes his colors as the situation calls for.”

“I’ve never seen Shapiro out front on any political issue,” Coard told Mother Jones. “It seems to me that he’ll wait to see how the wind blows.”

As speculation swirled around Harris’ vice presidential pick, progressive critics zeroed in on Shapiro’s outspoken frustration with protesters pushing against the Israeli war in Gaza. It is one of the few issues that Shapiro has not seemed to massage for his audience. Like many Democrats, Shapiro criticized campus protests, but, as Jonathan Chait noted in New York magazine, his tone has been particularly strong.

Shapiro earned his reputation for being ambitious through a swift ascent from the Pennsylvania Statehouse (2005 to 2011) to the Montgomery County board of commissioners (2011 to 2017) to the state attorney general’s office (2017 to 2023)—leaving amid his second term to assume the governorship. Shapiro is known for being competent and far-sighted. Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “I tease him all the time: ‘Josh has been trying to figure out how to be governor since about fifth grade.’” 

Shapiro had positioned himself well in advance of his run for governor. Two years before announcing his candidacy, then-Gov. Tom Wolf endorsed Shapiro as his successor. And as the Inquirer reported, Shapiro might have fended off his most high-profile potential primary challenger, then–Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, by changing his position on clemency applications from people serving life sentences. (Shapiro denied that there were political motivations behind his votes on the Board of Pardons.) 

By the time Shapiro made his move for governor, said Robert Saleem Holbrook, director of the Philadelphia-based Abolitionist Law Center, he “shut down any type of challenge” from both Democrats and independents. And despite his shaky record as attorney general, Shapiro drummed up support from the left. Shapiro won the backing of Philadelphia state Sen. Nikil Saval, a progressive who has been one of the most vocal proponents of a ceasefire in Gaza, to move forward on some criminal justice reforms. 

“He cleared the field by making those strategic decisions and alliances,” Holbrook said. 

During the Republican primary for governor, Shapiro singled out Mastriano from a crowded field, running ads that connected Mastriano to former President Donald Trump, seemingly in an effort to pick his opponent. Mastriano, an election denier, was seen as an unviable candidate from within his own party and ran a poorly funded campaign with little support from the GOP.  

With a far-right opponent and no Democratic primary challenger, Shapiro wasn’t pushed on any particular issues. As Mother Jones previously reported, this allowed him to define the race on his own terms:

As a gubernatorial candidate, Shapiro took the perhaps strategically vague stance of “common sense” criminal justice reform. During his campaign, Shapiro touted his creation, as attorney general, of a statewide police misconduct database. But he also ran as a self-described “pro-police crime fighter” and won endorsements from law enforcement unions. 

As the only governor presiding over a divided legislature, Shapiro has framed himself as a savvy bipartisan legislator. Last summer, he won praise for marshaling a quick response to the collapse of a portion of Interstate 95 outside of Philadelphia. 

But this tendency toward deal-making has also been criticized. Last year, to the surprise of teachers unions, he backed a Republican-led private school voucher program on the condition that public school funding would also increase. SpotlightPA reported that vouchers had big-money GOP backers, who also helped Shapiro during his political career, including mega-donor Jeffrey Yass. The Democrat-led Statehouse refused to support the program, so Shapiro ultimately vetoed it and angered both parties. The Inquirer called it a “rare misstep.” (Education advocacy groups around the country wrote a letter to Harris urging her not to pick Shapiro because of his stance on vouchers.)

In a race that will highlight Trump’s sexual misconduct, Shapiro’s handling of his office staff could have been be a hiccup, too. Last year, his office agreed to a $295,000 settlement for a sexual harassment complaint made against Mike Vereb, a top staffer. The agreement included a confidentiality clause, which, in light of Shapiro’s vice presidential prospects, some criticized. 

Perhaps the most divisive aspect of the debate over Shapiro’s record was his response to pro-Palestinian activism. In the New Republic, David Klion warned that Shapiro could be the “one vice presidential pick who could ruin Democratic unity.” Shapiro, an observant conservative Jew who has described himself as a Zionist, denounced University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill’s congressional testimony about antisemitic speech, joining a Republican-led push that led to her resignation. Shapiro suggested that some pro-Palestinian protests involved “antisemites camped out, yelling antisemitic tropes.” Shapiro also called for Penn to disband a student encampment and “restore order and safety on campus”—which, the Inquirer reported, came only after he knew plans to do so were already in process. 

Though he sharply condemned the protests, some have pointed out that Shapiro has not gone further than other of the VP contenders in responding to campus protests, and that he publicly rebuked Netanyahu and voiced support for a two-state solution. Yair Rosenberg, of the Atlantic, called the criticism of Shapiro antisemitic; many, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, questioned that conclusion. Last Friday, the Inquirer unearthed an editorial Shapiro wrote in college in which the eventual governor wrote Palestinians are “too battle-minded” for there to ever be peace in the Middle East. (A spokesperson told the paper his views have shifted over the last 30 years.)

Coard, the Philadelphia-based lawyer, said that despite his misgivings about Shapiro, he would nonetheless “hold his nose” in November and would have voted for the Harris-Shapiro ticket. Now, he will not have to.