The ticket that could make Democrats fall in love and fall in line

This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to future Election 2024 analysis.

Kamala Harris needs a running mate. An ideal candidate should: add value to the ticket, particularly in battleground state(s); have high and positive name recognition; be a proven winning candidate and fundraiser who can excite Democrats.

That sounds a lot like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

In an unprecedented year in our unprecedented politics, why shouldn’t Democrats really make history and nominate a two-woman ticket?

In her historic role, Harris has spent three and a half years mirroring the president, who has said she is qualified and capable to be his successor and who moved swiftly to back her after stepping aside. In the hours after Harris pledged to earn the nomination, fundraising reached a single day record for Democrats , who donated more than $46 million on Sunday. What would it look like to add Whitmer to this momentum?

This is not just about symbolism; it’s about a potential path to victory. And this is at least as — if not more — viable a scenario as anything involving a White man running mate. While conventional wisdom holds that electability is about a White man being at least part of the ticket, so much about this year is already not conventional. That could create an opening for a disruptive choice.

Harris and Whitmer are some of the most popular Democrats among engaged members of the party, man or woman. And with Republicans having just nominated an all-male, hyper-MAGA ticket in Milwaukee, a two-woman ticket could be a strong counterweight. With the battle drawn along gender lines that includes the question of whose rights matter and how equal women will be in this country going forward, voters would have an even starker choice that is about more than just partisan politics.

While Harris prosecutes the case against Trump on the campaign trail, Whitmer could be a formidable foe for JD Vance — particularly on a debate stage. Vance is being framed as the future of the Republican Party; both Harris and Whitmer represent no less for Democrats.

When it comes to Midwestern cred, Whitmer’s Michigan bonafides stand up against Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” narrative and could shore up Democratic, independent and rural votes in a crucial part of the country. Some people have asked if Harris — a Black and Indian-American woman from California — can win over voters in former Rust Belt states, where both parties are fighting for political dominance. Whitmer has done it. And she’s recently been telling her own story to voters, with a New York Times bestseller of her own, “True Gretch,” which published this month.

In 2008, the electorate proved the establishment wrong and America got its first Black president. Then, voters were engaged behind a cause — and they could be again, with abortion on the ballot and history on the horizon. Could Harris and Whitmer be the embodiment of hope and change this November?

Voters want a fighter in their presidential candidate. With Harris and Whitmer, they would get two. The vice president has been on the attack against Trump and in defense of reproductive rights since the Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion in 2022 and is a longtime advocate for maternal health. Whitmer, who campaigned on her personal story of sexual assault, has led on protecting abortion at the state level and made the issue central to her legacy as governor.

It doesn’t hurt for running mates to also be simpatico, as Obama and Biden were. Harris and Whitmer are said to get along. Whitmer has also campaigned with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. She’s an enthusiastic surrogate and was the co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, making her no stranger to the 2024 campaign trail.

In 2016, Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton lost the election but won the popular vote. In 2024, as the debate over electability continues, the viability of two qualified candidates with the potential to excite the base and appeal to a diverse coalition of voters — who happen to be women — is worth a conversation, if not our political imagination.

Our political reality tells us that a two-woman ticket would inevitably mean twice the sexism. Add to that the racism Harris has already — and would likely continue — to face. She has been on the receiving end of Trump’s ire for the entirety of her nearly four years in office and has been central to right wing, white nationalist messaging in the 2024 campaign.

Whitmer, the target of a kidnapping plot in her state in 2020 , has already experienced gendered political violence. Together, the pair could make a powerful case as living examples of the threat to women and their ability to rise above it in an America that also gives us a Trump-Vance ticket.

But would this ticket also draw twice the pushback from people who reject the politics of prejudice — and spark twice the enthusiasm among key groups like women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color and young voters?

If the promises of a big tent from a ticket of two White men ring hollow for some voters, there just might be room for them in a multiracial ticket of two women — a combination that could make Democrats fall in love and fall in line.