Roy Cooper and Gretchen Whitmer rule themselves out as Harris nears decision on running mate
The North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, 67, has known Kamala Harris since their overlapping days as state attorneys general and recently campaigned with her.
Cooper ran two successful gubernatorial campaigns in North Carolina, a battleground state, even as Donald Trump carried the state at the presidential level.
Three factors were cited for Cooper’s withdrawal from contention to become Harris’s running mate, Politico reported:
His desire to potentially run for Senate, his age and fears that North Carolina’s divisive Republican lieutenant governor would take over each time Cooper traveled out of state.
“From the get go, he was not a candidate for this,” a source told the outlet.
The North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, was asked last week by the Harris campaign to be vetted for vice-president but declined to participate, according to a report.
The Cooper team reached out to the Harris campaign a week ago on Monday – a day after Joe Biden left the race and endorsed Kamala Harris as his successor – to say he did not want to be considered, the New York Times reported, citing a source.
The report says that Cooper harbored concerns that Lt Gov Mark Robinson, a conservative Republican who is on the ballot this year to replace him, would mount a legal effort to usurp his executive authority while he was out of state.
