Even some Whitmer fans say Harris should probably pick a white guy

DURHAM, New Hampshire — Democrats believe America is ready to put a woman in the White House. Two women? Not so much.

It was a frank observation made freely and repeatedly across New Hampshire this week, as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hit the campaign trail to get party activists and operatives fired up about Democrats’ likely new nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats were euphoric about Harris — and bullish about her chances of breaking the nation’s highest glass ceiling. They fangirled — in their words — over Whitmer, and described her as an extremely qualified governor who they hoped would run for vice president or president someday.

But what about joining Harris on this ticket?

“I don’t know that the country is ready for two women at the top of the ticket,” Alison Hamilton, a Portsmouth Democrat, said after hearing Whitmer speak at a house party Thursday evening in Durham.

”We’re there for Kamala,” added Jan Collier, Hamilton’s sister. “Two women? I don’t know.”

As Harris weighs her pick for a running mate, Democrats are poring over the relative merits of a list of governors and other potential contenders. They represent different regions of the country, appeal to varied constituencies and have a variety of experiences. But nearly all of them are men.

And as Whitmer — whose strong electoral record in a must-win state for Democrats has put her on many people’s short lists for vice president — and other prominent female politicians hit the campaign trail for Harris, even Democrats who say they would love to see two women share a ticket are not convinced the country is ready for it.

Whitmer insisted across several interviews in New Hampshire on Thursday, where she spent the day serving as a surrogate for Harris, that Americans could get behind an all-female ticket.

“Of course America can have two women on a national ticket. We’ve had two men since the dawn of time,” Whitmer said. “Women can lead, as we’ve shown in many states where you have great women leaders.”

But Whitmer repeatedly disavowed interest in the job and said she is “not a part of the process.” She also dismissed talk of any future presidential ambitions as she worked her way through a pizza parlor in the heart of the first primary state that was packed with prominent New Hampshire Democrats and eager fans toting copies of her new book, “True Gretch.”

Whitmer is not the only prominent female Democrat being floated as a potential Harris running mate to promote the idea of an all-female ticket. Commerce Secretary and former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo was similarly emphatic about Americans’ ability to embrace a two-woman ticket in a CBS interview this week .

But Democrats have been down this road before. Hillary Clinton considered putting forward an all-female ticket in 2016 — one that could have included Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — but instead went with a white man, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine , whom many Democrats considered a safer option.

Now Harris is facing the same choice Clinton did against the same opponent: Donald Trump.

The dynamics of this race are far different for Harris than for Clinton. Trump’s comments about women have previously cost him support with suburban and college-educated voters. Democrats see Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, as more uniquely positioned to argue the case against Trump, who has been found liable for sexually abusing a woman in 1996 and whose Supreme Court picks helped overturn Roe v. Wade .

And after weeks — if not months — of Democratic panic over President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, the party is galvanizing behind Harris in a way many operatives say they have not seen since Barack Obama’s presidential run in 2008.

But in other ways, the race — and the calculation in selecting a running mate — may be similar. The former president has a long history of deploying sexist remarks against his female opponents , from the campaign trail to the courtroom. And some Republicans are already attacking Harris along sexist and racist lines, referring to her as a “DEI pick.”

Some Democrats feel nominating two women could be an unnecessary risk in a campaign that has already been upended barely 100 days before Election Day.

“We want to believe the country would support two women on a ticket when it has yet to support one woman as president,” said Boston-based Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. “Do you want to take a risk with so much at stake?”

And so as Harris attempts to become the first woman — as well as the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent — elected to the Oval Office, many of the names being floated as her potential partners are white men. Among them: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“She could [pick a woman]. But she’s not,” Bill Shaheen, the husband of New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen , the state’s first female governor, told POLITICO after introducing Whitmer in Durham. He’s personally pulling for Kelly, whom he recently spent time with overseas and whose background as an astronaut he felt would stack up well against Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).

Over a slice at the pizza parlor in Manchester where Whitmer glad-handed earlier on Thursday, Maxine Mosley, a delegate to the DNC and a state representative candidate in New Hampshire, said it’s “time for a female president.”

But asked whether it's time for an all-female ticket, Mosley shook her head from side to side.

“This country is so incredibly divided,” she said. “There's so much divisiveness that as much as I wish that we were ready for that, I'm not sure that we are.”