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      Harris’s VP list: Gretchen Whitmer and Roy Cooper say they’re not in running

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      Two lawmakers seen as strong contenders in the race to become Kamala Harris’s running mate have announced that they are not in the running. On Monday, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina governor Roy Cooper both said that while they support the vice-president, they will be staying in their posts in their respective states.“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Cooper said in a statement posted to Twitter/X on Monday. “As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”In an interview with CBS, Whitmer said that she has not been vetted by Harris’s office and expects Harris’s to announce her pick within the week, which would confirm the Democratic ticket at least two weeks before the Democratic national convention begins on 19 August in Chicago.“I have communicated with everyone, including the people of Michigan, that I’m going to stay as governor until the end of my term at the end of 2026,” Whitmer said.Others rumored to be potential running mates are all white men who govern in swing states that can decide the 2024 election. They include: Kentucky governor Andy Beshear; Minnesota governor Tim Walz; Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro; and Mark Kelly, a US Senator in Arizona.While all four have been asked about their willingness to serve as Harris’s running mate if tapped, all have signaled that they would step up if asked but none have hinted at their engagements with her campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is not about me. But I’ve always, always said when I’ve had the chance to serve, I think that’s very important to do,” Kelly told reporters on 25 July.“Being mentioned is certainly an honor … I trust Vice-President Harris’s judgement, she’ll make the best choice she’s going to,” Walz told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “But one way or another, she’s going to win in November and that’s gonna benefit everyone … Either way it’s gonna be a win.”During a campaign stop for Harris in Pittsburgh, Shapiro said: “It’s a decision she needs to make who she wants to govern with, who she wants to campaign with, and who can be there to serve alongside her.”And Beshear, who has also been stumping for Harris in red and purple jurisdictions, told the Des Moines Register newspaper: “I’m honored to be considered and, regardless of what happens, I’m going to work every day between now and Election Day to make sure that Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States.” More

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      Former chief of staff says Democrats’ efforts to push out Biden were ‘nasty’

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      Senior Democrats’ successful efforts to push Joe Biden out of the presidential race were “unfortunate, nasty and public” and did the president a “disservice”, Biden’s former White House chief of staff said – even as the new nominee, Kamala Harris, continued to fundraise strongly, campaign vigorously and show signs of catching Donald Trump in polling.“I was disappointed that people in the party called for [Biden] to leave the race, and I thought they got out of control,” Ron Klain said.“I thought it was unfortunate, nasty and public, and shouldn’t have been … I thought they were doing him a disservice, but I think he handled it incredibly graciously and came up with a plan that is going to work for us in 2024.”The podcast host Kara Swisher released her conversation with Klain on Monday, a little over a week after Biden made history by saying he would relinquish power.Now 81, Biden was long subject to doubts about his fitness for office, but calls to quit accelerated after the first presidential debate in late June, during which Biden appeared frail and confused and failed to check Trump’s lies.Klain left the White House last year but helped Biden prepare to debate.He said: “I thought the debate was an opportunity for the president to put some of these questions [about his age and fitness] to rest, but obviously [it] did not go well that night and that is what it is. And so we took a gamble and the gamble didn’t work.“I thought it was a reasonable chance to take. I thought the president, as he showed in the days after the debate, was fully capable of making his case forcefully on the stump, fully capable of answering unscripted questions, as he did at his press conference [during a Nato summit in Washington]. I thought we would see that on debate night and we just didn’t, of course.”Klain said Biden had been “very kind” and “took responsibility in our conversations and said he’d had a bad night, and told me not to feel bad about it. I think … he just was off.”Few Democrats agreed. Amid sympathy for Trump after an assassination attempt, and with polling showing Biden in trouble in key states, calls for the president to stand aside surged, supported by party grandees including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, who Biden served as vice-president.Eventually, Klain said, Biden “made a decision that he couldn’t keep the party unified” but also decided “to point the direction forward, and he pointed very clearly towards Vice-President Harris.“And so I think that was a wise decision, and I think he’s executed it extremely well. You see the vice-president emerging in very short order as the consensus nominee of our party with strong backing … I think that’s great.“… So I don’t really love how we got here, but I think we’re in a good place. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to win this year.” More

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      Kamala Harris will announce VP pick in ‘next six, seven days’, Democrat says

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      Kamala Harris will announce her running mate for the US presidential election against Donald Trump and JD Vance “in the next six, seven days”, an influential Democratic campaign co-chair said.“I would imagine we’ll know who her running mate is, and we’ll get ready for the convention,” Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, told CBS on Monday, referring to Democrats’ national gathering in Chicago next month.Whitmer also said she was not under consideration herself.“I have communicated with everyone, including the people of Michigan, that I’m going to stay as governor until the end of my term at the end of 2026,” Whitmer said.Harris is widely reported to have narrowed her field of possible picks to three – all white men from states expected to play key roles in the November election. On Sunday, a new poll said the navy pilot and astronaut turned Arizona senator Mark Kelly was seen most favourably by voters.According to ABC News and Ipsos, 22% of respondents saw Kelly in a favourable light against 12% who did not, giving him a net favourability of +10.The two other men widely reported to be in the final reckoning are the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. In the ABC/Ipsos poll, Walz scored -1 for favourability, Shapiro +4.Strikingly, Kelly’s favourability rating was a striking 25 points better than that of Vance, the Ohio senator whose first steps in support of Trump have been beset by controversy and Democratic attacks, leading to reports of doubts among senior Republicans.Under fire for misogynistic comments including disparaging leading Democrats as “childless cat ladies”, and widely shown to have said he despised Trump before changing his tune, Vance’s favourability rating in the ABC/Ipsos poll was -15, a poor score surpassed only by Trump himself, at -16.Lest Kelly supporters get too confident, the ABC/Ipsos poll also noted that he and most other potential Democratic picks “remain unknown to large sections of the American public”. Among all possible Democratic nominees for vice-president, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg (+4 favourability), and the governor of California, Gavin Newsom (-12), were the best-known to voters.Harris was seen favourably by 43% of voters and unfavourably by 42%. Among possible picks who might help boost that rating, Kelly represents a border state, central to the fight over immigration, and is married to Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived a shooting and campaigns for gun control reform.Shapiro governs a rust belt state that proved pivotal in 2016, when Trump won it, and in 2020, when it went for Joe Biden.Walz’s state, Minnesota, has voted for the Democrat in every presidential election since 1976 but Trump has targeted it this year, trumpeting polling gains before Biden dropped out of the race.Biden, 81, withdrew from his re-election campaign amid polling that showed most Americans thought him too old to be president. That means that, at 78, Trump is now the oldest candidate ever to run for the White House.Whitmer told CBS she expected a “convention of happy warriors” in Chicago. Harris advisers are reportedly placing emphasis on potential running mates’ ability to take the fight to Vance, who they want to portray as too inexperienced to step up should Trump fail to serve a full term.Now 39, Vance was a US marine, a bestselling author and a venture capitalist before winning a US Senate seat in 2022.On Monday, Mitch Landrieu, a Harris campaign co-chair, called Vance “one of the most unprepared people … ever put up to hold the vice-presidency of the United States”.Landrieu told CNN: “He’s never run anything. And he’s about to be one heartbeat away from the largest entity in the world, and the one that’s the most important.“So it’s a fair question to ask: ‘How would we know whether you have the capability to run domestic and national security policy for the most powerful country in the world, which you may be called to do on a moment’s notice?’”Kelly, 60, was elected to the Senate in 2020. Walz, 60 and a former teacher and national guard sergeant, was a US congressman for six terms from 2006 before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018. Shapiro, 51, sat in the Pennsylvania state house before becoming state attorney general in 2017, then governor in 2023.CNN quoted “a Harris adviser” as saying the running-mate selection process would be informed by Harris’s own experience.Now 59, Harris was a former California attorney general and US senator when she was picked by Biden in 2020. Her four years as vice-president have generated reports of struggles but also effective displays on key campaign issues, particularly threats to abortion rights.“She knows the challenges of this world in a way that you have to have somebody who has a deep amount of resilience,” the unnamed adviser told CNN.A campaign spokesperson, James Singer, told the same network Harris would “select a vice-president who is qualified and ready to serve the American people, protect their freedoms, and fight for their future”.All three men reportedly under closest consideration have chosen their words with care.“This is not about me,” Kelly told reporters. “But always, always when I’ve had the chance to serve, I think that’s very important to do.”Walz said: “Being mentioned is certainly an honour. I trust Vice-President Harris’s judgment … I would do what is in the best interests of the country.”Shapiro said Harris would “make that decision when she is ready, and I have all the confidence in the world that she will make that decision, along with many others, in the best interests of the Amercian people”. More

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      Why Kamala Harris should pick Tim Walz as running mate | Mehdi Hasan

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      Have you seen the touching images from March 2023, of the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, being hugged by a group of elementary school kids after signing into law a bill that provided them with free school meals?Or the fun clip from September 2023, of Walz with his daughter Hope laughing and screaming on a ride at the Minnesota State Fair?How about the viral video of Walz on MSNBC last week, mocking Donald Trump, JD Vance and the Maga Republicans as “weird people”?That video has had more than 4.6m views on Twitter/X alone and, per Politico, is credited with the Democrats’ new shift “toward a more gut-level vernacular that may better capture how many voters react to far-right rhetoric” of the Trump/Vance variety.Kamala Harris herself has now borrowed Walz’s lingo and is also calling her opponents “weird”, while Walz is all over our television screens, bolstering the vice-president’s candidacy and playing “attack dog” against the Trump/Vance Republican ticket.I’ll be honest: last month, I would have struggled to pick Walz out of a lineup.This month? I’m Walz-pilled. I have watched dozens of his interviews and clips. And I’m far from alone. He has an army of new fans across the liberal-left: from former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign co-chair Nina Turner, to one-time Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke, to gun-control activist David Hogg. “In less than 6 days, I went from not knowing who Tim Walz is,” joked writer Travis Helwig on X, “to deep down believing that if he doesn’t get the VP nod I will storm the capitol.”According to Bloomberg, the Harris campaign has narrowed down its “top tier” of potential running mates to three “white guy” candidates: Walz (hurrah!), plus the Arizona senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.Both Kelly and Shapiro have their strengths – and both represent must-win states for the Dems. Allow me, however, to make the clear case for Walz.First, there’s his personality. The 60-year-old governor would bring energy, humor and some much-needed bite to the Democratic presidential ticket. There’s a reason why his videos have been going viral in recent days. Tim Kaine he ain’t. Pick the charismatic and eloquent Walz and you have America’s Fun Uncle ready to go.Then, there’s his résumé. A popular midwest governor from a rural town. A 24-year veteran of the army national guard. A high school teacher who coached the football team to its first state championship. It’s almost too perfect!Finally, there’s his governing record. You will struggle to find a Democratic governor who has achieved more than Walz in the space of a single legislative session. Not Shapiro. Not JB Pritzker of Illinois. Not even Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.In May 2023, Barack Obama, of all people, shared a piece from the MinnPost on X, which laid out Walz’s very successful – and very social-democratic – legislative record in the North Star state:“Democrats codified abortion rights, paid family and medical leave, sick leave, transgender rights protections, drivers licenses for undocumented residents, restoration of voting rights for people when they are released from prison or jail, wider voting access, one-time rebates, a tax credit aimed at low-income parents with kids, and a $1bn investment in affordable housing including for rental assistance.”Got that? Walz basically did Biden’s “Build Back Better” on steroids, despite only a single-seat majority in the state senate.But wait, there’s more!“Also adopted were background checks for private gun transfers and a red-flag warning system to take guns from people deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others. DFL lawmakers banned conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, legalized recreational marijuana, expanded education funding, required a carbon-free electric grid by 2040, adopted a new reading curricula based on phonics, passed a massive $2.58bn capital construction package and, at the insistence of Republicans, a $300m emergency infusion of money to nursing homes.”Democrats at the national level can only dream of such progressive legislative victories.Policy wins aside, Walz also comes with less political baggage than his two main rivals and is, therefore, much less likely to divide the party.Think about it. Democrats can have Tim Walz on the ticket, who called the anti-war, pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement “civically engaged” and praised them for “asking for a change in course” and “for more pressure to be put on” the White House, or they can have Josh Shapiro, who called for a crackdown on anti-war, pro-Palestinian college protesters and even compared them to the KKK.They can have Walz on the ticket, who has reportedly “emerged among labor unions as a popular pick” after signing “into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker” including banning non-compete agreements and expanding protections for Amazon warehouse workers, or they can have Mark Kelly, who opposed the pro-labor Pro Act in the Senate.They can have Walz, who guaranteed students in Minnesota not just free breakfasts but free lunches, or Shapiro, who has courted controversy in Pennsylvania with his support for school vouchers.They can have Walz, who calls his Republican opponents “weird” and extreme, or Kelly, who calls his Republican opponents “good people” who are “working really hard”.This isn’t rocket science. Walz is the obvious choice. Not only is he the ideal “white guy” running mate for Harris, against both Trump and Vance, but he is already doing the job on television and online, lambasting Vance in particular over IVF treatment and insisting he mind his “own damn business”.And you know who is paying attention to all this? “Weird” Donald Trump, who was especially infuriated after Walz attacked him for cosying up to Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán on … Fox.“Why did Fox News put up Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, where I am leading?” the former president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “They make me fight battles that I shouldn’t have to fight!”Has there ever been a better endorsement for a Democratic vice-presidential nominee?

      Mehdi Hasan is the founder and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo More

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      Biden calls for supreme court reforms including 18-year justice term limits

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      Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to the US supreme court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.In an op-ed published on Monday morning, the president said justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service on the court rather than the current lifetime appointment, and also said ethics rules should be strengthened to regulate justices’ behavior.The call for reform comes after the supreme court ruled in early July that former presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution, a decision that served as a major victory for Donald Trump amid his legal travails.“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden wrote.“I served as a US senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.“I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”Biden called for a “no one is above the law” amendment to the constitution, which would make clear that no president is entitled to immunity from prosecution by virtue of having served in the White House. Biden also said justices’ terms should be limited to 18 years, under a system where a new justice would be appointed to the supreme court by the serving president every two years.The president also called for stricter, enforceable rules on conduct which would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial interest.Last week Justice Elena Kagan called for the court to strengthen the ethics code it introduced in 2023 by adding a way to enforce it. That code was introduced after a spate of scandals involving rightwing justices on the court: Clarence Thomas was found to have accepted vacations and travel from a Republican mega-donor, while Samuel Alito flew on a private jet owned by an influential billionaire on the way to a fishing trip.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLegislation would be required to impose term limits and an ethics code on the Supreme Court, but it is unlikely to pass the current divided Congress.The constitutional amendment on presidential immunity would be even more difficult to enact, requiring two-thirds support from both chambers of Congress or a convention called by two-thirds of the states, and then ratification by 38 of the 50 state legislatures.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Kamala Harris allies deploy new Trump attack line: he is ‘just plain weird’

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      US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”.“I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.The Harris campaign, working to redefine the race with particular attention to the youth vote, including colorizing online HarrisHQ banners lime green after Charli xcx’s “brat” endorsement, has sought to draw attention to Trump’s rally storytelling. Particularly, they have highlighted his frequent but references to fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs fame as well as the choice between being shocked by a sinking electric boat or being eaten by a shark.But “weird” is what seems to be sticking, in part as an apparent simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses – which dominated 15 months of Biden’s re-election campaign.Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz appears to have started the “weird” political trendline. He posted on X, “Say it with me: Weird,” in response to a video of Trump speaking about Lecter. Walz later followed up with “these guys are weird” to describe Trump and Vance.During a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Walz was asked if “weird” had replaced existential threat to democracy as a more effective attack strategy. The retired high school educator and football coach replied: “It’s an observation because being a schoolteacher I see a lot of things.”Walz added that a second Trump presidency could indeed put women’s lives at risk over reproductive rights after three of his US supreme court appointees helped eliminate federal abortion rights in 2022. He also said Trump could end other constitutional liberties – but musing about his embodiment of a threat to democracy “gives him way too much power,” Walz argued.“Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and whatever crazy thing pops into his mind,” Walz said.“I think we give him way too much credit. If you just ratchet down some of the scariness and just name it what it is. Have you seen the guy laugh? It seems very weird to me that an adult can go through six-and-a-half years of being in the public eye and when he laughs it’s at someone – not with them.”“That’s very weird behavior,” Walz explained on State of the Union. “I don’t think you call it anything else. It’s simply what we’re observing.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US transport secretary Pete Buttigieg, also an outside contender for Harris’ vice president pick, tried a slightly amended line, telling Fox News that Trump is “clearly older and stranger than when America first got to know him”.The 78-year-old Trump’s campaign, he added, has maintained its candidate “is strong as an ox, leaps tall buildings in … bounds, but we don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side”.“I’m pretty sure voters are worried about the age and acuity of president Trump compared to Kamala Harris, who represents being a generation younger,” Buttigieg said. “And how could anybody not watch the stuff he’s saying, the rambling on the trail, and not be just a little bit concerned?”The new Democratic line on Trump comes after several days of criticism aimed at Vance not only about the “childless cat” lady comment – but also because of reportedly resurfaced comments calling Trump “morally reprehensible” and expressing his hatred for police officers, who generally enjoy the support of Republicans.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer described Vance’s selection as an “incredibly bad choice” to CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, adding that the Ohio Republican senator “seems to be more erratic and more extreme than President Trump”.“I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, why did I pick this guy? The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats,” Schumer said.The discursions come as a new ABC News/Ipsos poll on Sunday found that Harris’ favorability rating had jumped to 43% from 35% a week earlier. It found a major jump in her favorability rating among electorally crucial independent voters, with 44% saying they viewed her favorably compared to 28% the previous week.Also significant is the 59-year-old Harris’s numbers within the swing group of “double haters” – voters who liked neither Biden nor Trump. Within that group, the number who liked neither candidate has dropped from 15% to 7%. More

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      Buttigieg: Republicans calling Kamala Harris a diversity hire is ‘a bad look’

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      White House administrator Pete Buttigieg says it is “a bad look” for Republicans to call Kamala Harris a diversity hire in their attempts to slow down the momentum that has greeted her ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket for November’s presidential race.On Saturday’s episode of the New York Times podcast The Interview, the Democratic transportation secretary said “you can tell” that is the case because of how even Republican US House speaker Mike Johnson has tried to distance himself from that line of attack against Harris.“You got somebody like Mike Johnson, who is a very, very conservative figure … telling his own caucus, like, ‘Hey, cool it,’” Buttigieg remarked to podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “He’s basically saying that they are embarrassing the party, and I think acknowledging that they are diminishing the party’s chances by indulging in that kind of rhetoric.”Buttigieg added: “And the fact that they can’t think of what else to do, besides go right to race and gender, isn’t just revealing about some of the ugliest undercurrents in today’s Republican party – it’s also profoundly unimaginative because it means that they can’t speak to how any of this is going to make people’s lives better.”Harris, a former California attorney general and US senator who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage, became the first woman to be elected vice-president when Joe Biden won the Oval Office in 2020. She is now poised to become the first woman of color to lead a major-party presidential ticket after Biden halted his re-election bid on 21 July and endorsed her, setting the stage for Harris to reportedly sign up 170,000 campaign volunteers and raise $200m for her political warchest in a matter of days.Supporters of the Republican nominee Donald Trump – who lost the presidency to Biden – have met those accomplishments by disparaging Harris as a hire resulting from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. While grappling with a criminal conviction for election-related fraud in a case involving an adult film actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him as well as other prosecutions pending against him, Trump has insulted Harris as “crazy”, “nuts”, “dumb as a rock” and – at a rally on Friday – “a bum”.That approach prompted some Republican leaders to try to warn party members against aiming overt racism and sexism at Harris. Those included Johnson, who said at a Tuesday news briefing: “This election will be about policies and not personalities.”The Louisiana congressman added: “This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris, and her ethnicity or her gender having nothing to do with this whatsoever.”Buttigieg went on the Republican-friendly Fox News Sunday show and said Harris has proven herself in “one of the most visible leadership roles in the country”.“The idea that somebody hasn’t been tested or vetted when they have been vice-president of the United States just doesn’t make any sense,” Buttigieg said.Opinion polls show Harris is running a tight race with Trump after Biden had fallen several points behind, with the president’s support in vital swing states plummeting.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionButtigieg – the ex-mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 – is considered to be among a field of contenders to be Harris’s running mate. And in fact, a National Public Radio/PBS News/Marist poll showed him tied as the most popular Democratic vice-presidential candidate for the fall election.He declined to tell Garcia-Navarro whether he believed he would make a good vice-president.“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to talk like that knowing that the person who needs to make that decision is … her – not me,” Buttigieg said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to wander down that path with you right now.” More

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      ‘Good for Joe’: Scranton residents back Biden’s decision to quit race

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      The Central Scranton Expressway, the road which leads into Scranton from the I-81 highway, was renamed in 2021 as the President Joseph R Biden Jr Expressway.The road drops down into the center of Scranton, the Pennsylvania city where the president was born, where it meets up with Biden Street – renamed in the same 2021 city council vote.There is no indication yet that Scranton, a former coal and manufacturing hub home to about 80,000 people, intends to change its name to Bidenton, but the message here is clear: this is Joe Biden country.“​​Let me start off with: we’re very proud of Joe Biden. We love Joe Biden. The fact that he’s a local guy, and all that,” said James Ferguson, 81.Ferguson was sitting with his brother, John Ferguson, 77, on a bench on Biden Street on Thursday afternoon. It was a blow for both when the president, who moved to Delaware from Scranton aged seven but who speaks often of his Scranton upbringing, decided to drop out of the race in mid-July, but the fondness for Biden remains.“I think Joe Biden showed the character that he is. He is a very good man, and he put the country first. It’s not how good he is, or whether he is smart or not. It was perception. The perception was bad for Joe, and he knew it and he dropped out. Good for Joe,” the elder Ferguson said.But with Trump leading Biden in the polls and posing an existential threat to the US, there is an acceptance that Biden had to go.“We can’t afford to lose this election, I think. So yeah, we were disappointed. We voted for him, we would vote for him again. But I think this is better for the party, better for the country,” John Ferguson said.“He’s a realist. I think he finally was convinced that he couldn’t take the risk. We’ve got to stop Trump from winning. We can’t let Trump get in. That is a terrible man. He’s an insult to the human race, that man.”Biden dropped out on Sunday, bringing to an end a painful, weeks-long pressure campaign that began with a dreadful debate performance and saw an ever-increasing number of Democratic politicians call for him to resign.Behind the scenes senior party figures, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, had also made the case to Biden that he couldn’t win, despite the president comfortably – albeit in the face of very little opposition – clinching the Democratic primary earlier this year.“His age was a concern for a lot of voters and he was slipping in the polls. And I was very worried about that. So I mean, I’m thankful of all he’s done, I think he’s done good work, and I think he did the honorable thing that really should be valued,” said Angela Miller, a civil engineer.“I never wanted him to run again. He never said he was going to, do you know what I mean? From the beginning he said he was going to be a transitional president. I felt like he kind of went back on that.”Biden narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2020, defeating Trump by 80,000 votes. He comfortably won Lackawanna county, the north-east Pennsylvania district where Scranton is based, but not everyone in the city is an admirer.View image in fullscreen“He wasn’t really on the ball I don’t think. It was kind of like having the senile grandpa in the White House office,” said Phil Fleming, 61, as he watching his friend unpack a guitar at a bandshell in downtown Scranton.Fleming had the opposite geographic journey to Biden. He grew up in Delaware, where Biden moved with his family aged 10, and then moved to the Scranton area later in life. But Fleming has no particular affection for the president.“I always said Joe would do for the country what he did for Delaware: nothing,” he said.Biden endorsed Kamala Harris for president within minutes of pulling out of the race on Sunday. Harris has since all but secured the Democratic nomination, and if she wins in November she would become the country’s first woman president.“I’m excited about it. I think it would be awesome to have a female run the country, to see what she could bring and try to unite the country a little bit more,” said Kelly, 34.Kelly, who asked not to use her last name, was walking her dog through the Green Ridge area of Scranton, where Biden’s three-storey childhood home is now marked by a small plaque.“It’s definitely a cool thing to say that the President of the United States grew up in your neighborhood, you can’t really say that too often. So it’s a little fun fact that we have here,” she said.Few cities can claim to have a president on their books – Quincy, in Massachusetts, can lay claim to two: father and son duo John Adams and John Quincy Adams. For Scranton, Biden may no longer be in the race, but he will remain a presence.“I think he really put all his heart and soul into this country, and I just feel like maybe now it’s time to step out, and let the next generation come in and serve the same way he did,” Kelly said. More