Just when you thought the veepstakes was over, it comes roaring back to life. Six days after Donald Trump revealed J.D. Vance as his pick for vice-president, Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race. Biden backed Kamala Harris as his replacement, and she quickly racked up endorsements, leaving little doubt that the vice-president will be officially selected as the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.

But who will be Harris’s VP pick? That’s a wide-open question. Here’s a roster (which we’ll keep updated) of those believed to be on Harris’s running-mate shortlist with the pros and cons of each possibility, loosely arranged from the candidates with the best odds to those with the worst.

U.S. Senator from Arizona

PROS: Mark Kelly is a Navy veteran and former astronaut from the swing state of Arizona. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in a 2020 special election and was reelected to a full term in 2022. He has a higher profile than some other VP candidates because he became a gun-control advocate along with his wife, former U.S. representative Gabby Giffords, after she survived an assassination attempt in 2011. In his previous contest, Kelly won 58 percent of Latino voters, a key demographic in the upcoming election. As a Democrat from a border state, Kelly could also help defend Harris from GOP attacks on immigration issues.
CONS: Kelly’s choice would create some Senate election drama. Governor Katie Hobbs would certainly appoint a Democrat to replace him, but that person would have to run in 2026 and again for a full term in 2028.
KELLY’S STANCE: In his X post endorsing Harris, he said, “Gabby and I will do everything we can to elect her President of the United States.” He has not commented publicly on the possibility of being her running mate.
AUDITION CLIP: Here’s video of Kelly blasting his Republican colleagues on the Senate floor for killing a bipartisan border deal:

Senator Mark Kelly slammed Republicans colleagues for killing bipartisan border deal, calling it a "shameful" week for the Senate. pic.twitter.com/gcaBETGVi9

Kentucky Governor

PROS: Andy Beshear is a two-term Democratic governor from the very red state of Kentucky. The former state attorney general’s election to the governorship in 2019 was seen as a possible fluke until last year when he beat his Trump-backed challenger by five percentage points. Beshear accomplished this partly by focusing on state issues, but he also championed abortion rights, a key issue for Democrats in 2024. As a moderate who has worked with Republicans and often talks about his Christian faith, he could be appealing to swing voters.
CONS: At 46, Beshear is one of the youngest governors in the nation. That could be a positive in an election focused on the candidates’ ages, but it could also underscore the governor’s lack of experience on the national stage. While Kentuckians embraced Beshear, it’s highly unlikely he’ll deliver the ruby-red state for Democrats; Trump won Kentucky handily in 2016 and 2020. Beshear may not be much help to Democrats in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, either.
BESHEAR’S STANCE: On the day........

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