Allies of Vice President Kamala Harris and betting markets suggest Democrats’ vice presidential nominee could come from Texas. History says otherwise.
William McRaven, former chancellor of the University of Texas System, has reportedly been vetted as a potential Harris running mate, according to NBC News. McRaven is a retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral and foreign policy expert who advised former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
McRaven, who teaches national security at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, declined to discuss the report, saying via email: “As you can appreciate any discussion between the campaign and myself must remain confidential.”
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Betting odds have former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban at 50-1. Cuban declined to comment on the speculation.
Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential scholar and retired professor at Saint Louis University School of Law, said vice presidential nominees since 1940 have traditionally had experience as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member, though the latter group is picked less often nowadays.
“One of the problems with Texas is that your statewide offices, the traditional feeder positions, are held by Republicans and have been for some time. So it’s not as if there’s a recent Democratic governor of Texas who’s in his or her political prime,” said Goldstein, author of The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution and The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden.
Two Texans ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020: former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro. Both have been out of office for several years, and neither has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, is challenging incumbent Republican Ted Cruz for his U.S. Senate seat.
As for how McRaven and Cuban entered the conversation, Goldstein said major-party candidates often start their search for a vice presidential candidate with a long list.
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“It often includes people whose background is military leadership or business leadership or are mayors, justices of the Supreme Court,” he said. “But invariably, those people drop off the list when the candidates get to the short list.”
Goldstein said balance is a key strategy for building a ticket. Former President Donald Trump, for example, balanced his ticket in 2016 with Mike Pence, who had executive and legislative experience as governor of Indiana and a former member of the U.S. House.
Harris, a former U.S. senator, could benefit from running alongside a governor who has executive experience.
“You’re trying to choose somebody who will be perceived by reachable voters as a plausible president and who is able to be an effective campaigner on a national basis,” Goldstein said. “You’re looking for somebody whose selection will send positive messages about the presidential candidate, how he or she makes decisions, what they value, the issues or practices that are important to them. And then you’re looking for somebody who hopefully can be helpful in the campaign and who will be a compatible governing partner.”
But there are red flags to watch out for, he cautioned, highlighting the importance of thoroughly vetting candidates.
“When Sen. [John] McCain picked Gov. [Sarah] Palin and she came across to many voters as not sufficiently informed, that presented a red flag,” he said. “I don’t think that’s why he lost, but it made it more difficult for him.”
Harris, who called herself the presumptive nominee after gaining support from a majority of delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention, would have much less time to choose a running mate than most nominees, who typically spend at least six weeks searching for a No. 2.
“It’s a challenging position that she’s in because she’s really conducting a process and will have to make a decision much more quickly than is normally the case,” he said. “If you think about Trump sort of stringing the process out over six months, she only has a few weeks.”