❓WHAT HAPPENED: Failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has revealed Pete Buttigieg was her first choice for running mate but deemed it “too big of a risk.”
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Tim Walz.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Excerpt from Harris’s upcoming book 107 Days, set to release September 23.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” – Kamala Harris
🎯IMPACT: Harris ultimately chose Tim Walz as her running mate, losing to President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in the election.
Pete Buttigieg was former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s “first choice” to be her running mate in the 2024 presidential election. The choice of Buttigieg—the homosexual former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, McKinsey consultant, former Secretary of Transportation, and Naval Reserve intelligence officer—was revealed in a newly released excerpt from Harris’s upcoming book, 107 Days, which recalls her disastrous presidential campaign.
Despite Harris’s preference for Buttigieg, she settled on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) instead, concluding that Buttigieg “was too big of a risk.” Harris wrote that Buttigieg, “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man.” She added, “But 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’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk,” Harris wrote. “And I think Pete also knew that—to our mutual sadness.” Harris and Walz, effectively a straight white male diversity hire, went on to lose the 2024 presidential election in a landslide to President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in November.
The excerpt also revealed that Buttigieg initially led Harris’s vetting list for running mates. Harris described him as “a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them.” She added, “I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”
It is unclear whether Harris’s vetting of Buttigieg uncovered the former Transportation Secretary‘s ties to Patrick Wojahn, a former Democrat mayor of College Park, Maryland, who was sentenced in 2023 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to dozens of charges relating to the possession of child pornography. The 30-year sentence (150 in total with 120 years suspended) comes after Wojahn reached an agreement with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August to 140 counts related to the possession and distribution of materials depicting child sexual abuse.
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