Who Should Kamala Harris Choose As Her Running Mate?

On July 12, the research team at Unanimous A.I. used Thinkscape to ask a sample of the American voting public who would best replace Joe Biden as the democratic candidate for President if he dropped out.

We randomly assembled 106 likely voters (all democrats and independents) in Thinkscape and asked them to decide which replacement candidate would have the best chance of winning the 2024 race for president.

As shown in the video below, the real-time collective intelligence created in Thinkscape indicated that Kamala Harris would be the best replacement (86% conviction). Their next choice Gavin Newsom was a very distant second.

Eight days later, Biden announced he would be dropping out of the race. Thirty minutes later he publicly endorsed Harris to be his replacement. Multiple other prominent figures followed with endorsements. And within 24 hours Harris had also raised over $80 million in campaign donations. It seems that Democratic party leaders and donors had a similar perspective as the real-time collective intelligence formed in Thinkscape using the public.

Now that Biden is out and Harris is the presumed nominee, speculation is rampant about who Harris will choose as her running mate. Specifically, the big question everyone is trying to answer is this: “𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘝𝘗 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨-𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘒𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘢 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺?"

To forecast the best outcome, we used Thinkscape again, this time asking a group of 107 likely voters (democrats and independents) who Harris should choose from among the following group of potential choices:

Andy Beshear (Gov KY), Pete Buttigieg (Transportation Secretary), Roy Cooper (Gov NC), Mark Kelly (Sen AZ), J.B. Pritzker (Gov IL), Josh Shapiro (Gov PA), Tim Walz (Gov MN), Gretchen Whitmer (Gov MI).

As shown in the chart below (automatically generated by Thinkscape during the real-time deliberation) the public’s collective perspective is that Senator Mark Kelly would be the best choice as Kamala Harris' running mate.

Furthermore, the real-time collective intelligence of 107 voters expressed: “We believe Mark Kelly is the best choice to be VP running-mate because of his swing state appeal, his impressive resume, his military and astronaut background, and his bipartisan respect. However, we have some worries about losing his Senate seat in Arizona if he runs for VP and some concerns over his centrist stance on some policy issues.”

Note - Whitmer sentiment is low because she said she's not interested in the VP role.

Thinkscape is an AI-powered online platform that enables large groups to hold productive real-time conversations about any topic—like a dozen or more parallel focus groups running in real time. It combines the qualtitative insights of small deliberative focus groups with the quantitative intelligence of large-scale polls and surveys.

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