Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is out of the 2024 veepstakes. He withdrew his name from consideration today, though we don’t know why. Mr. Cooper and Vice President Kamala Harris go back to their days as prosecuting attorneys. The Tar Heel State is one that the Harris camp is targeting now that the Democratic Party ticket has flipped due to Joe Biden’s withdrawal on July 21. While Democratic enthusiasm has improved and fundraising is now kicking on all cylinders, Harris isn’t polling much better against Donald Trump.
The New York Times didn’t give a reason for Cooper saying ‘no, thanks’ to the 2024 ticket, but, likely, he doesn’t want to be roped into the chaos of a campaign that’s going to be a rushed product that could damage future plans if he has any (via NYT):
Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who has been seen as a leading contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, has informed her team that he has withdrawn from the vice-presidential sweepstakes, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Cooper, who previously served as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was believed to be among the half-dozen top candidates to join Ms. Harris on the Democratic ticket.
It was not immediately clear why he had taken himself out of consideration. A spokesman for the Harris campaign declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper has known Ms. Harris dating to their overlapping days as state attorneys general and also campaigned recently with her. He has twice won governor’s races in North Carolina, a battleground state, even as Donald J. Trump carried the state at the presidential level. Mr. Cooper is prohibited from seeking a third term.
[…]
Ms. Harris is seeking to select a running mate on a highly compressed timeline, aiming to make her choice by Aug. 7 — a little more than two weeks after she entered the race to replace President Biden on the Democratic ticket.
Besides Mr. Cooper, those known to be under serious consideration include Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
With less than 16 weeks to go until Election Day and the entire campaign being rebuilt from scratch essentially, I doubt any Democratic governor with 2028 aspirations, even if they’re merely just discussion topics, aren’t going to want to gamble and have their name attached to this potentially sinking ship. Right now, the surge for Harris, if you could call it that, is that she’s not Joe Biden. She’s the anti-Biden, for lack of a better term, but can she sustain it? If Trump checkmates her in the next debate, the Democrats are primed to get obliterated, a position they were already nestling in when Biden was still in the race.
UPDATE: NBC News reports that Cooper plans to run for Senate in 2026:
One source directly involved in Harris' search for a running mate said Cooper took himself out of the mix because he wants to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. The source said Cooper, 67, never indicated to the campaign that he wanted to be vice president and told Harris aides that he did not want to be considered.
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