Veepstakes

A fanciful preview of the next important step for the Harris Campaign

Photo by Nathan Howard / Reuters

“There’s good news, Madam Vice President,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, newly rehired after leading the Biden Campaign.

“More?” Harris asked with her signature smile. “Jen, you keep making my day.”

Dillon took a breath. “It’s over a quarter billion dollars now,” she said, quickly calculating how many attack ads that could buy in the Philly TV market in September.

“I thought it was $81 million,” said Eric Holder, whom Harris had brought in for the Veepstakes chat.

“$81 million was just from the small donors. Then there’s more than $150 million from the big donors.”

“That’s a lot of coconuts,” Harris said.

“Indeed, ma’am. It’s raining coconuts, in fact.”

“Nancy Pelosi just endorsed!” shouted an intern running in with her phone out. 

Harris couldn’t recall her name. Madisyn, with a y? Maybe? Ironically, Joe was always better about remembering names.

“And she’s making the official announcement, too. You just won all of the California delegates. That puts you over the top!”

“We did it!” Harris said, her mouth widening, recreating one of her best phone calls with Joe.

“Indeed, ma’am,” said Dillon again. “We did it. It’s also raining delegates, in fact.”

“Okay!” Harris said, clapping her hands. “Time to cook this turkey.”

“The VPs next?” Dillon asked. 

Holder sat up and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long and exciting 48 hours.

That intern, Madisyn, came over to the desk, a folder of Venn diagrams in hand.

“I heard you like these,” Madisyn said. “So I made them for the Veep candidates.”

“Oh, I do love a good Venn diagram!” exclaimed Harris. “I used charts with juries all the time.” She gave Madisyn her best “good job” face. Mental note to bring Madisyn on full time. Gotta put that quarter billion to work. 

“So what have we got here?” Holder asked. As a fellow prosecutor, Harris trusted Holder intuitively. He would get to the crux quickly.

Madisyn pulled out a photo and a Venn diagram.

“Is this Jared Polis? From Colorado?” Harris asked.

“No, I didn’t make a file for him. But he said he’d do it, ‘if,’ and I quote, ‘they want a 49-year-old, balding, gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado, they got my number.’”

“Not exactly a strong play for the role,” Holder said. 

“And we have someone Jewish already in the mix,” Dillon said. “I mean, besides the Second Gentleman, of course.”

“Okay, so who is this in the photo?” Harris asked. “He looks like a schoolboy!”

“Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky,” Holder said.

“Mmm. Was he at the Juneteenth White House barbecue?” she asked. 

“I would guess no. Not really his vibe,” Dillon said, politely.

“Beshear is a Democrat that can win statewide in Kentucky—the same state that brought us Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul,” Holder observed.

“What is going on in Kentucky?” Harris said, laughing in that way Trump hates.

Holder shrugged. The South still mystified him after all this time.

“No one knows. But the thinking is, if Beshear can win in Kentucky, he could win over white moderates.”

“Who don’t like me,” Harris said.

“Who don’t know you,” Dillon corrected. “The message here would be, ‘A nice white Christian man like Beshear trusts her; you can, too.’”

“Okay, a lean in on the caucasity. But does he win us Kentucky?” Harris asked skeptically.

“Not even Jesus Christ could beat Trump in Kentucky,” Dillon said. “If you’ll excuse the expression, ma’am.”

“I made a diagram!” cried the intern. “Here is your electoral vote circle. And here’s what Beshear could add.”

“Nothing,” Harris said, her eyes looking at the circle inside the circle.

”Nothing.” the intern added. “Nothing at all, um, Madam Vice President.”

“Okay, who’s next?” Harris asked.

“Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois.”

“JD?”

“JB.”

“What’s with these initials suddenly?” Harris picked up the photo. “Sweet Beyonce, I thought that was Bill Barr without his glasses!” Harris laughed.

“Prizker’s popular in Illinois. And he’s got billions of his own money,” Holder noted.

“I got 99 problems but money ain’t one,” said the Vice President, doing an impressive cabbage patch.

“Money seems on track,” agreed Dillon.

“And we already have Illinois,” added Holder.

“Next we have Secretary Buttigieg,” said Madisyn, pulling out Pete’s photo and imagining being an au pair to him and Chasten.

“Oh, I LOVE Pete,” Harris exclaimed. “He’s great when he goes on Fox.”

“Buttigieg is nationally known, popular with the base. And he brings the gay vote,” Holder remarked.

“We don’t have the gay vote?” Harris asked, a bit worried.

“We have the gay vote, ma’am,” Dillon assured her. “They were wearing ‘Kamala’ Ts on Fire Island on Sunday.”

“Already?” Harris asked.

“They move at gay speed, ma’am,” Dillon said.

Madisyn opened her Instagram. The women gathered around, appreciatively.

“Incredible,” Harris said. “Can you get some for the staff?”

“They only come in midriffs,” the intern added. “HR issue.”

“Gotcha. So what’s the Venn look like with Buttigieg?” Harris asked.

Madisyn pulled out a report. Dillon looked at the pages and numbers and scratched $100K off her budget.

“We did some internal polling. His base is your base, it seems. See this pink circle? It’s entirely inside the chartreuse one.”

“We’re going with chartreuse?”

“It’s for the Brat memes, ma’am,” said Dillon.

“The Brat memes…?” Harris said, 

“You’ll have to just trust me on this,” said Madisyn. Harris noticed her tongue piercing for the first time. Gen Z were just different.

“So, the pie is not any bigger, just sweeter.”

“And gayer,” Dillon said. “Sweeter and gayer.”

“Sounds appetizing!” Harris said. 

“Here’s Mark Kelly, ma’am,” said Holder, moving things along. “Senator from Arizona. One of the best fundraisers in the Senate. Popular with younger racial minorities in his state. Could deliver us the sunbelt states, Arizona, Nevada.”

“We took those states last time,” objected Harris.

Holder was ready for this. He pulled out another poll. Dillon scratched another $100K off.

“You did. But barely. The polls were looking iffy for Joe with that demo. Better numbers with you at the top.”

“But not for sure,” Harris said.

“It’s 2024,” Dillon said, “nothing is for sure.”

Everyone stopped and took a breath. June surprise, two July surprises. 100+ days to go.

“Arizona and Nevada both have abortion rights amendments on the ballot,” Holder said, breaking the tension. “That’s already your strong suit, and we expect turnout will be high.”

“Still,” Dillon said, “a win in Arizona makes the math much harder for the other side.”

“The other side does math?” Harris asked, laughing again. Somewhere, Trump was glowering.

“Here’s another Venn, with Kelly’s votes in Arizona added to yours,” said the intern.

“That’s not 270,” Harris remarked. 

“No, it isn’t, ma’am,” said Dillon. “It’s 268. Even with you winning Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Kelly’s Arizona, it’s still just 268.”

“Fucking electoral college,” muttered Madisyn. Everyone looked at her. She wanted to melt into the floor.

Kamala Harris took her hands. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” she said.

“I love you!” said the intern, then pulled away. “Sorry, that just, that just came out of nowhere.”

“Here’s Roy Cooper,” said Holder, his patience ending. “Current governor of a possible battleground, North Carolina. Term limited. Could help deliver the Tar Heel state.”

“Issue with him is,” Dillon warned, “whenever he’s out of the Tar Heel state to campaign, the Lieutenant Governor is in charge.”

“The lunatic?” Harris asked.

“Mark Robinson. MAGA Black candidate for governor.”

“Wonders never cease,” Harris remarked. “Cooper could deliver North Carolina?”

“It’s a stretch goal,” Dillon admitted. “We’ve got field offices there, and there are lots of new voters in the research triangle area. But probably not enough to offset the yahoos in the state.”

“Are we… are we allowed to call them that?” asked the intern, shocked. Dillon scowled.

“Final candidate is Josh Shapiro,” Holder coughed. “Popular governor, cleaned the GOP’s clock in the midterms, led a blue wave in Pennsylvania.”

“He fixed the highway thing, too,” Dillon said.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t heard about that in a while. What happened?” Harris asked.

“What happened is he fixed it,” Dillon said matter-of-factly. “In record time.”

“See now, there’s the problem right there,” Harris remarked. “They don’t report on things when they’re being fixed. Only when they’re being broken.”

“God, I love you!” exclaimed the intern again, then threw her hand over her mouth. 

“Shapiro could deliver us Pennsylvania,” Holder continued, side-eying the intern. “No matter how we slice it, Pennsylvania is a must-win.”

“Which is why Joe was there all the time,” Dillon said.

“I thought it was for the cheesesteak sammies.” Harris laughed.

The intern looked enraptured, once more.

“Oh my God, you’re going to win. You’re going to win!” she cried. “Sorry!” she said looking at Holder and Dillon, who were now both losing patience. “Sorry.”

“You have a chart for me on Shapiro?” Harris asked, smiling patiently. Maybe keep her off the paid staff.

“What? Oh! Yes! Oh, yes, I do. Here.”

Harris studied it. Shapiro’s circle overlapped her own, but also filled the right side of the page. Someone had added a bunch of blue bodies to it.

“These are voters. Pennsylvania voters, actually,” the promoted-then-demoted intern explained.

“I like it,” said Harris. 

“Shapiro would mean another Jewish name in your close circle,” Dillon said. “Nothing wrong with that, but the conspiracy pushers will milk it.”

“Maybe we lean into it,” laughed Harris. “Jews: They fix broken things.”

“Can we… can we actually say that?” squeaked Madisyn.