Still riding the sugar high of her campaign launch, Kamala Harris now looks to make a VP selection, reportedly rather soon.

This makes sense after all as right now the opposing presidential ticket has two members that it can campaign with while hers only has the one.

But who will Kamala select? There's Tim Walz of Minnesota; popularly reelected in 2022 and was the governor who oversaw the response to the 2020 riots in Minneapolis.... He's had a very active publicity campaign to stir up support for a nod from Harris, making frequent appearances on CNN to describe the opposing ticket as "weird" and a "threat to democracy." And Minnesota appears to be closer this election cycle than in the last, but it still is not one of the core swing states. If the Trump campaign sees victory in Minnesota, then it likely means it already won PA, MI, and WI -- and thus, the election. For Trump, it is the cherry on top of an electoral victory, not a state that gets him one. Accordingly, there is less of an incentive to defend it for Democrats as they know Republicans likely will not play hardball to win it when there are states that they can expend their resources on for a much greater chance of a return (again, PA, MI, and WI). Don't count on Walz to be the selection.

Then, there is Mark Kelly: senator, former astronaut, and husband of Gabrielle Giffords. The son of two police officers, Mark Kelly may help mitigate the attacks the Trump campaign is already lobbing against Harris for her prior rhetoric on rioting and defunding the police.¹ Kelly comes across as a moderate Democrat, which is how he was able to win an election in Arizona in the first place. However, the question is whether he could help Harris win an election there this time around. Prospects look disfavorable for such an outcome. Why? Well, in the first place, Trump right now is still beating Harris in Arizona by around 5 percent, which remarkably is better than even his 2016 performance; this is despite a undeniable shift towards Harris that Republicans are supposing (and hoping) is just a honeymoon period. Nate Silver, of former 538 fame, performed some of his usual mathematical wizardry to determine that a Kelly nod would garner Harris a gain in Arizona of about 0.7%. Not nothing if you're losing the state by only 2%. If that were the case, Harris could force the Trump campaign to play more defense, as she and the Biden campaign have been forced to do all cycle in MN, VA, NH, and ME.

Lastly but not least-ly, there is Josh Shapiro: current first-term governor, practicing member of the Jewish faith, and a proud supporter of Israel. When Hamas attacked Israel last October and killed over 1,200 people, almost immediately there were protests in support of "Gaza" (really, Hamas) that the Pennsylvania governor chastised for being uninformed. His vocal support for Israel and his unwillingness to morally equivocate the two sides, as most of the rest of the Democratic Party has done (including Harris), has lead to some consternation around his potential addition to the ticket. Some of the Democratic Party's radical Left wingers have taken great issue with the man for his Israeli support, but as media pundits have pointed out, there is also some concerns about his Jewish faith.² Unfortunately for them, the Left has made some horrible bedfellows in recent years: far Leftists and Sharia-law-supporting Islamists, neither of whom have warm feelings towards Israel or Jews. Harris could select Shapiro to help her get a boost in PA, but that selection could very well harm her in states like MN and MI, with considerable Muslim and Arab American populations. Winning PA but losing MI all but assures a second Donald Trump presidency.

But I'm here to tell you that this decision likely does not matter all that much in the first place. There is little evidence to corroborate the importance and press coverage we give to the VP selection. In Pennsylvania after all, Silver estimates that Shapiro would give Kamala a grand total bumps that amounts to (drum roll please)... 0.4%. Now that said, that is certainly helpful in a state that will likely be decided by 2% either way, but it does not move the needle when looking at the big picture. Harris would still have to hold on to Michigan and Wisconsin in order to win, and Wisconsin tends to vote to the right of Pennsylvania. Michigan, while typically voting to the left of Pennsylvania, has shown a willingness to buck that trend this cycle over threats to its auto manufacturing industry from the Biden-Harris administration -- policies that would no doubt be continued by a Harris administration. That goes without considering the possible, albeit probably negligible, impact that the selection of a pro-Israel, Jewish man would have in Michigan. Remember: In April, it became the conventional wisdom that the temperature around the Israel-Hamas issue would fall over the summer as students from these ultra-liberal universities went home. Well, class will soon be back in session, and the war is not over. In fact, a broader Middle Eastern war may just now be heating up following some high profile assassinations of Iran-backed terrorists by the Israelis. This is to say that the Israel-Hamas war may become an issue of greater salience and news coverage once again. This may drag down Josh Shapiro -- and the Harris ticket with him.

Still, Shapiro may be the Democrat's best move. Harris holds a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Don't be surprised if that's when we get a decision.