One VP finalist left Harris interview with 'not a great feeling' about getting picked

Kamala Harris and her team loved Tim Walz, while another leading candidate feels like he may have blown his shot at becoming the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

The vice president announced the Minnesota governor as her running mate Tuesday morning, and the pair will kick off their campaign together in Philadelphia, and sources close to her campaign told Politico how the decision came together over the past few days.

Harris and Walz connected Sunday during their one-on-one interview, despite barely knowing each other, and the vice president was intrigued by his background as as former high school teacher, a football coach and a veteran who'd won a GOP-leaning congressional district in 2006, and her team found him to be an impressive communicator after branding Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as "weird."

Walz's framing went viral in the weeks since president Joe Biden ceded the Democratic nomination to Harris, and other clips of the Minnesota governor were shared around social media by energized progressives and younger Democrats, while Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro avoided TV appearances and promoted the vice president's record and his own at campaign events in his home state.

That strategy rubbed some Harris insiders the wrong way, with one senior Democrat who's in touch with her team calling his tactics "counterproductive," while others saw it as showboating.

Shapiro's team also got the sense that his interview didn't go as well as he'd like, with one person in touch with his advisers telling Politico there was "not a great feeling" coming out of the sit-down talk.

The governor called the Harris team after their meeting Sunday and made clear Shapiro was struggling with the decision to leave his current job as governor of Pennsylvania, in order to seek the vice presidency,” another source familiar with the selection process said.

Harris and her staff wanted to take their time on the decision, and she told aides Sunday that she wanted to sleep on it before making her decision Monday and telling just a few staffers on Monday evening, before news began to spread the following morning that Walz was the choice.