Harris set to name VP pick ahead of swing state tour

Kamala Harris will name her running mate as soon as Monday, as she prepares for a blitz of US battleground states aimed at turning excitement over her presidential bid into durable support that can power her to victory.

All paths to the White House run through a handful of swing states, and Harris will kick off a critical five-day run Tuesday in the largest -- Pennsylvania -- as she builds momentum for her showdown with Republican Donald Trump on November 5.

"At this moment, we face a choice between two visions for our nation: one focused on the future and the other on the past.... This campaign is about people coming together, fueled by love of country, to fight for the best of who we are," she posted on X.

Fresh from winning enough delegate votes to secure the Democratic nomination, the country's first female, Black and South Asian vice president heads into the national convention in Chicago in two weeks in total control of her party.

The 59-year-old former prosecutor has obliterated fundraising records and inspired a groundswell of volunteer support on her way to erasing the polling leads Trump had built before President Joe Biden quit the race.

But with just three months until election day, Harris is scrambling to introduce herself to an electorate that still sees her as something of an unknown quantity -- and before Trump and his allies are able to define her themselves.

- 'Talented politician' -

But first on the agenda is a vice presidential pick, with an announcement expected any time before her rally Tuesday evening alongside the yet-to-be-named running mate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's largest city.

It is part of the "blue wall" that carried Biden to the White House in 2020, alongside Michigan and Wisconsin -- two states where Harris is due to woo crowds on Wednesday.

Pennsylvania is governed by 51-year-old Democrat Josh Shapiro, a frontrunner in the "veepstakes" shortlist that includes fellow state governors Tim Walz and Andy Beshear, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.

Walz, Shapiro and Kelly met Harris separately at her residence in Washington on Sunday, according to US media.

"It should be Josh Shapiro. I don't think this is a hard choice," Republican former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who has spent his career garnering the kind of moderate support that Harris needs, told ABC on Sunday.

"He's a very talented politician. He's extraordinarily popular... in a state she needs to win."

Later in the week, Harris will tour the more racially diverse Sun Belt and southern states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, as she seeks to shore up the Black and Hispanic vote that had been peeling away from the Democrats.

- Harris polling bump -

Just a month ago, Trump was in cruise control, having opened a significant lead in swing state polling after a dismal debate performance by Biden. The Republican tycoon then unveiled right-wing Senator J.D. Vance as his own vice presidential pick and, after surviving an assassination attempt, got a hero's welcome at the party convention in Milwaukee.

But Trump's White House bid was upended on July 21 when 81-year-old Biden, facing growing concerns about his age and lagging polling numbers, exited the race and backed Harris.

Energetic and two decades younger than 78-year-old Trump, the vice president has made a fast start, raising $310 million in July, according to her campaign -- more than double Trump's haul.

The latest presidential poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst released Monday has Harris leading Trump nationally by three points -- 46 percent to 43 percent -- compared to a four-point lead for Trump over Biden in January.

Trump and his Republicans have struggled to adapt to their new adversary or hone their attacks against Harris -- at first messaging that she was dangerously liberal on immigration and crime, before suggesting she was lying about being Black.

Trump -- who has already been campaigning for a year and a half -- has a much lighter week, avoiding the swing states altogether as he holds a rally Friday in Montana as well as a dinner and a fundraiser Saturday in Colorado.