Pro-Palestinian Groups Seek to Thwart Josh Shapiro’s Chances for Harris’ VP

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania took the stage at Wissahickon High School in the Philadelphia suburbs Monday to the roars of his fellow Democrats, a campaign appearance and an audition all in one.

As he enthusiastically shouted out his support for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, the pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had dogged Democratic politicians last spring were nowhere in evidence. There was only the adoration of an audience from his native Montgomery County, which the Democratic ticket must carry by sizable margins in November to win Pennsylvania.

But as Harris prepares to name her running mate before a rally Tuesday in Philadelphia, those protests are very much part of the calculus surrounding Shapiro, who is believed to be on her shortlist of potential running mates.

An effort by a motley group of left-wing and pro-Palestinian activists to derail his nomination has presented the Harris campaign with a decision as the vice president prepares to make one of most significant choices of her career: Should she take the opportunity to stand up to her far-left flank in an appeal to the center of the party and to independents, or should she shy away from inflaming an issue that has divided and bedeviled the party — Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip?

“Harris needs to win Pennsylvania, signal moderation and reassure Haley voters that she’ll stand up to the left,” said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., a Jewish military veteran and an admirer of Shapiro, referring to Republican supporters of Nikki Haley. “The more the Twitter left piles on him, the more helpful he is to Harris.”

Shapiro, an observant Jew who speaks openly about his faith, has taken a position on the war that is not all that different from any of the other Democrats under consideration to be the vice president’s running mate, or from Harris’.

The 51-year-old governor has stood by Israel’s right to self-defense and has condemned overt displays of antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests. He has been unapologetic in his love for Israel; he has visited often and even proposed to his wife there. He has also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “one of the worst leaders of all time.”

But Palestinian rights activists see someone different, the public face of intransigent support for Israel. They point to Shapiro’s suggestion in April that people would not tolerate “people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia,” and thus should not tolerate antisemitism on campuses either, as a comparison of pro-Palestinian demonstrators to the Ku Klux Klan.

Shapiro supported the dismissal of the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Elizabeth Magill, amid accusations that she had tolerated a climate of antipathy for Jewish students. He also recently updated a code of conduct for state employees to forbid them from engaging in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior, a move interpreted as targeting Palestinian rights activists.

The campaign to thwart his nomination is, by its own admission, not well organized. The loose coalition includes the Democratic Socialists of America; Uncommitted, which waged a campaign to convince Democratic primary voters to register protest votes against President Joe Biden; the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow; and a group of anonymous pro-Palestinian aides on Capitol Hill known as Dear White Staffers. It does not include some of the largest Palestinian rights groups, nor have more prominent progressive groups joined, such as Justice Democrats.

Opponents of the governor have posted a website, No Genocide Josh; promoted an online petition; circulated anti-Shapiro articles on social media; drummed up a Signal channel; and issued internet provocations to whip up opposition from activists who had been focused on chasing Biden from the race.

But the people who put up the website declined to be interviewed, instead boasting in an unsigned email to The New York Times, “In less than one week our petition has garnered more than 850 signatures and our messages on social media have caught the attention of reporters and politicians from across the country.” For a national campaign, 850 signatures hardly represent bragging rights. Shapiro received 3,031,137 votes in his 15-percentage-point victory for Pennsylvania governor in 2022.

It is not clear whether such criticism will hurt or help Shapiro, as Harris weighs a pick that soothes the political center or calms the fringes of her coalition. The buzz on the left should simply be ignored, said Paige G. Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of the predominantly working-class city of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“There’s always going to be some faction on the far left and the far right that says no one’s good enough,” she said with a shrug.

Indeed, the Harris campaign has an opportunity to expand its appeal by adding Shapiro to the ticket, his supporters say. The progressive wing of the party is already becoming less vocal in its criticism over Gaza, believing the vice president is inching toward them on Israel and the Palestinian territories with her forthright calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, her acknowledgment of “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” in the territory and her pledge to “not be silent” on Palestinian suffering.

With progressive voters coming back to the Democrats, Shapiro, who declined to be interviewed, would complete the coalition that helped Democrats win back the White House in 2020, reassuring Jewish and pro-Israel voters that the Harris administration would not lurch leftward.

Some supporters also see bigotry at work in the Shapiro opposition.

“Every potential nominee for Vice President is pro-Israel,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote on social media Friday. “The reason he is treated differently from the rest? Antisemitism.”

But to the pro-Palestinian movement, there are plenty of other candidates for the ticket. Shapiro might help win Pennsylvania, but Rabiul Chowdhury, an executive board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Philadelphia and a co-chair of the Abandon Biden organization, driven by the Palestinian cause, said in an interview that Shapiro would hurt Harris’ chances in Michigan, where a large Muslim and Arab American population had already turned on Biden.

Critics of Shapiro raise the specter of mass protests at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Some also cite other issues, including Shapiro’s past support for vouchers to send children to private schools and allegations that he swept charges of sexual impropriety against an aide under the rug.

The message from his critics on the left is simple: Shapiro is just not worth it.

“He’s got a perfect storm on his hands when there’s less controversial options available,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for the progressive group Uncommitted.

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, staunchly defended Shapiro’s record on public education. He said while the state government could not comment on personnel matters, the Shapiro administration “takes allegations of discrimination and harassment seriously. Robust procedures are in place for thoroughly investigating reports of discrimination and harassment.”

Some left-wing Jews have joined the anti-Shapiro cause.

“IfNotNow and the left are excited to see an opportunity to create more distance” from the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel, said Sara Abramson, 30, a leader of IfNotNow’s Philadelphia chapter. She credited Harris for doing that. “Naming Josh Shapiro would diminish that distance that we’re looking for.”

The governor’s supporters say he most certainly is worth it. A Fox News poll released Friday found Shapiro had a 61% approval rating in the state, among the highest of any governor. It found that in a theoretical head-to-head matchup, he would beat former President Donald Trump by 10 percentage points in the state.

Whatever the politics of the choice, Shapiro is proudly, religiously Jewish and an ardent backer of the Jewish state, those who know him say.

“It animates who he is,” said David Glanzberg-Krainin, the chief rabbi of Shapiro’s synagogue in suburban Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

The sanctuary of the synagogue, Beth Sholom, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to fuse the indomitability of ancient Israel with the greatness of a rising America. Shapiro had his bar mitzvah beneath its vaulted ceiling and talks and texts with its head rabbi, though Glanzberg-Krainin is quick to say he was in no way the governor’s spiritual adviser.

Using a Yiddish term that roughly means “person of integrity,” Glanzberg-Krainin added, “Besides being very ambitious, and someone who is really talented, he’s — on a personal level, he’s a mensch.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .