On September 18, 2025, the political world got a jolt of candor as excerpts from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s forthcoming memoir, "107 Days," surfaced in The Atlantic. The revelations? Harris had seriously considered Pete Buttigieg, the former Secretary of Transportation and South Bend mayor, as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election. But, as she recounted, the historic pairing of a Black woman and a gay man was, in her estimation, too big of a risk for American voters to accept at that moment.
According to The Atlantic, Harris wrote, "We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness." She described Buttigieg as "a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them."
The news, quickly picked up by outlets like ABC News, Axios, IndyStar, and Newsweek, offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at the high-stakes calculations that go into assembling a presidential ticket. Harris’s memoir, set for release on September 23, 2025, promises more such insights from what she calls "the shortest presidential campaign in modern history." After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024, Harris was thrust into the role of standard-bearer for the Democratic Party, a position that required swift and consequential decisions.
Buttigieg’s presence at the top of Harris’s short list wasn’t just a passing fancy. As Harris revealed, she genuinely admired his ability to connect across ideological divides. In her words, Buttigieg possessed that "rare talent" to communicate liberal ideas in a way that resonated with conservatives—a skill the Democratic Party has long coveted. Yet, as IndyStar and MPR News noted, the prospect of two barrier-breaking candidates on one ticket ultimately gave Harris pause. "He would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man," Harris wrote, laying bare the intersectional challenges she felt the ticket would face.
In the end, Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. According to a source close to the selection process, cited by ABC News, Harris valued Walz’s executive experience and his "strong record of accomplishment for middle class families that models what we want to do nationally." Walz, a straight, white, two-term governor with a Midwestern sensibility and progressive beliefs, was seen as a safer bet for a party eager to reclaim key Rust Belt voters. Harris herself told supporters in August 2024 that Walz fit her criteria as "a fighter for the middle class" and a unifying leader.
Despite her careful calculations, Harris’s campaign ultimately fell short. But the revelation about Buttigieg’s near-selection has reignited debates about the Democratic Party’s approach to diversity, representation, and electoral strategy. As Newsweek observed, Harris’s decision was shaped not just by her own instincts, but by the broader anxieties within the party about how much risk American voters were willing to stomach after a tumultuous primary season and Biden’s abrupt exit. Simon & Schuster, the publisher of "107 Days," has described the memoir as "a page-turning account" filled with "surprising and revealing insights."
Buttigieg, for his part, responded to the revelations with a blend of surprise and optimism. Speaking to POLITICO on the same day the excerpts were published, he said, "My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories." He went on: "You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them. Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things." Buttigieg noted that he and Harris never actually discussed her concerns directly, but he cited his own experience—winning two terms as mayor in South Bend and Barack Obama’s 2008 win in Indiana—as evidence that voters can sometimes defy expectations.
The timing of these revelations is notable. Both Harris and Buttigieg are widely rumored to be eyeing presidential bids for 2028, though neither has made any formal announcement. As IndyStar and Newsweek pointed out, the two have a history: they shared the debate stage in 2020 as Democratic primary rivals and have since emerged as leading voices in the party’s ongoing effort to redefine its message and messenger. On the very day the news broke, Buttigieg was in Indiana rallying Democrats against mid-decade redistricting efforts, further cementing his role as a key player in the party’s future.
The fallout from Harris’s memoir extends beyond just the VP selection. In another excerpt published by The Atlantic, Harris criticized the Democratic Party’s decision to let President Biden decide alone whether to run for reelection in 2024, calling it "recklessness." She wrote, "This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision." Buttigieg, when asked about this critique, agreed that Biden "should not have run, and if he had made that decision sooner, [Democrats] might have been better off."
Political analysts, like Mark Shanahan of the University of Surrey, have weighed in as well. Speaking to Newsweek, Shanahan remarked, "No possible pick for VP on the Harris ticket was going to tick every box, and Walz was a reasonable choice when she believed her most important battle was for male voters in the Rust Belt. If she had really wanted Buttigieg, she could have demanded him. Perhaps the fact she was talked down by others reflects how weak and rushed her candidacy turned out to be."
The broader context is hard to ignore. The Democratic Party, still reeling from a difficult 2024 election and facing aggressive attacks from the Trump administration on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, is now being forced to reckon with its own internal debates about identity, risk, and winning coalitions. As the party looks ahead to 2028 and beyond, the questions raised by Harris’s memoir—about who gets to lead, how much change is too much, and what risks are worth taking—are likely to linger.
As the dust settles from Harris’s frank admissions, one thing is clear: the Democratic Party’s path forward will require not just strategic calculation, but also a willingness to confront the very questions of identity and representation that have animated American politics for decades. For Harris, Buttigieg, and their party, the next chapter is just beginning.
