CNN’s Harry Enten Declares That Josh Shapiro Is ‘Clearly’ Democrats’ Best VP Candidate: ‘An Answer Is Just Staring You Straight in the Face’

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten called Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro Kamala Harris’s best potential running mate from an electoral perspective on Tuesday, musing that the answer is staring her “straight in the face.”

“Nationally, a lot of these guys aren’t particularly well known. So I think it’s important to look at their home states, the people who know them best, to get an understanding of how popular these guys can potentially be,” began Enten before diving into the data:

So this is how much they outperform Biden’s 2020 margin in their last election — all these guys ran in 2022. And the one name that just stands out on this list is Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania. Look at this, he outperformed Biden by 14 points, y goodness gracious look how large that is! Sometimes I think an answer is just staring you straight in the face and in this particular case, Josh Shapiro is looking at you right in the face. Mark Kelly’s not too bad either, right? He outperformed Biden by five points and keep in mind, he was running in a federal race which isn’t quite apples and apples, right, with a gubernatorial statewide race. But still, five points, not bad, outran all the other Democrats in Arizona. Tim Walz, who seems to have been picking up some sort of momentum on social media, but look at this he only outperformed Biden by 0.6 points, very much on a different planet than, let’s say, a Josh Shapiro, who’s the clear runaway winner on this particular metric.

Enten went on to note that VP candidates are usually worth between .5% and 2% in their home states, which he said could “the whole ballgame” given how close presidential elections in swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania have been.

Kate Bolduan then asked Enten “Which of the top candidates’ home states is most likely, or maybe most important for Harris or Trump to win?”

“Let’s say you’re choosing between Mark Kelly and you’re choosing between him and a Josh Shapiro, which of these two states is the one that you actually want to provide that boost to?” replied Enten. “The chance that this state puts either Harris or Trump over the top in the Electoral College, once again, look at Pennsylvania as the clear one runaway winner here. A 30% chance. a 30% chance that that is the state that puts you over the top in the Electoral College. Arizona, it’s just a 4%. Minnesota is less than a 3%.”

“Why is Pennsylvania so important? Well, it has so many electoral votes. It has 19 electoral votes, right?” he added. “So if you’re able to put that in your back pocket, all of a sudden your electoral map for Kamala Harris becomes that much easier. And it makes Donald Trump’s map a lot more harder.”

“I don’t know which way she’ll [Harris] go, but the math points in a very clear direction in my mind,” concluded Enten.

On X, he summed up the segment by noting that “from an electoral perspective, Josh Shapiro is clearly the best.”

Watch above via CNN.

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