In a presidential election that will be decided by the slimmest of margins, every decision counts.
But has Kamala Harris made a mistake in choosing her running mate?
A new poll from DailyMail.com/JL Partners shows she is tied with Donald Trump in the likely swing state of Pennsylvania.
However, he would be ahead if he had added his governor, Josh Shapiro, to his ticket instead of Minnesota’s Tim Walz.
When likely voters were asked who they would support, 47 percent said Harris/Shapiro, one point higher than those who said they would vote for Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Poll results show that Kamala Harris would have a slight lead in Pennsylvania if she had chosen the state’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate.
But when Walz was on the ticket, the rivals were tied at 47 points each.
The numbers confirm what both Democrats and Republicans said at the time: Harris may have pulled a trick by bypassing the popular governor of a swing state who could decide who wins the election.
David Urban, a longtime Trump confidant and Pennsylvania strategist, said, “Josh Shapiro is an incredibly gifted and gifted political athlete.”
“And I think it just speaks to Kamala Harris’ poor judgment and the inherent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of the Democratic Party that she didn’t pick such a clear winner.”
Shapiro is Jewish and has been governor since 2023.
Polls regularly label him the state’s most popular politician, more popular even than Taylor Swift, who spent her early life in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
However, as Harris was making her decision, some progressives highlighted her stance on Israel and her criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters.
She may not have won a spot on the ballot, but Harris gave a nod to the importance of her state, which represents 19 electoral college votes, when she revealed her choice. He introduced Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as his running mate at a boisterous rally in Philadelphia.
Running mates rarely decide the outcome of elections.
Polls frequently find Josh Shapiro to be the most popular politician in Pennsylvania.
Harris surprised many commentators when she chose Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, which is not a swing state, to join her on the Democratic ticket.
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But James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said that with such a close race, Harris may have weakened her chances of victory.
‘Walz hasn’t been a disaster by any means; even in the debate he technically lost to JD Vance, he didn’t discourage voters.
‘But it’s hard to deny that electing a hugely popular governor of the most important state could have been the smartest decision.
‘This path is riddled with counterfactuals, including whether Shapiro could have performed as well under the national spotlight. But for now it seems like he would have been a better choice than Tim Walz.
Polls suggested that Walz came in second in his debate against Vance.
And he has been forced to repeatedly clarify comments about everything from his whereabouts during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to his position in the Electoral College.
For now, the elections are on a knife edge. The latest JL Partners/DailyMail.com election model data shows Trump has the lead, with a 58 percent chance of victory.
But that means the race will go to the finish.
