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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........

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