Report: Choosing Walz over Shapiro Hurt Kamala in Pennsylvania

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, left, visits Old San Juan Ca
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Vice President Kamala Harris lost a small but significant percentage of the Jewish vote in Pennsylvania after picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) as her running mate, an exit poll reveals.

That’s the report of the New York Post, which suggests that Harris damaged her chances in the Keystone State:

The Harris-Walz ticket won Pennsylvania Jewish voters by seven percentage points, 48%-41%, over the GOP ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance, according to the survey conducted by the Honan Strategy Group for the Teach Coalition, an affiliate of the Jewish Orthodox Union.

However, 53% of Jewish voters said they would have pulled the lever for the veep if Shapiro was her No. 2, while support for Trump-Vance would have dropped to 38%.

The results suggest that Harris may have come closer or even won in Pennsylvania — which she lost to Trump by 2.1% — or other swing states had she picked the popular Shapiro, who Jewish community leaders claimed at the time was subject to an “ugly, antisemitic campaign” that led to him being passed over for the VP slot.

As Breitbart News reported in August, Harris chose Walz, a left-wing governor from a reliably blue state with only ten Electoral College votes, over Shapiro, a relative moderate from a swing state with 19 Electoral College votes, partly due to opposition among Democrats over Shapiro’s pro-Israel views, which were reinforced by his Jewish identity.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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