Kamala Harris Reveals She Wanted Pete Buttigieg for VP: “Too Big of a Risk”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris is making headlines again—this time with a candid confession about one of the most pivotal decisions of her failed 2024 presidential bid.

In her new memoir, 107 Days, Harris admits she initially wanted Pete Buttigieg as her running mate but backed away, fearing America wasn’t ready for a ticket featuring both a Black woman and a gay man.

“I believed Pete would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man,” Harris writes. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Adding a gay man to the ticket felt like a gamble too big to take.”

The revelation comes against the backdrop of one of the most chaotic election cycles in modern American history. After President Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump in June 2024, Harris was thrust into the top of the ticket with barely three months left before Election Day. Her rushed campaign lasted just 107 days—the shortest modern presidential run by a major party nominee—and ended with a crushing loss to Trump.

As Harris recounts, she had little time to make a choice that could alter history. “Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, I couldn’t risk giving voters another reason to doubt us.” Instead, she chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, betting on a safer, more traditional pick.

Buttigieg, now a leading voice in Democratic politics and a rumored contender for 2028, reacted with surprise to Harris’s claim. Speaking to Politico, he rejected the idea that voters weren’t ready.

“My experience in politics has been that you earn trust from voters based on what you’re going to do for their lives, not what category you fit in,” Buttigieg said firmly. “Obama proved that. And in my own career, voters didn’t care about labels—they cared about results.”

He added: “Politics is about what we can deliver. I’ve always believed the voters should be trusted to make that call.”

The disclosure has reopened Democratic soul-searching about whether Harris played it too safe in 2024. Some party strategists now argue a Harris-Buttigieg ticket could have energized younger, more progressive voters who sat out, or at least challenged Trump’s framing of the race as a return to “traditional values.”

“It’s a haunting what-if,” one Democratic strategist told me. “Harris went with caution when the moment demanded boldness. And Democrats are still paying the price under Trump’s second term.”

Harris’s book, set for release on September 23, promises to offer a raw and unflinching account of her 107 days as the Democratic nominee. She is expected to face tough questions on the book tour—especially about whether fear, not strategy, dictated her VP choice.

“What the world saw was only part of the story,” Harris says in a video promoting the memoir. “The campaign was intense, high-stakes, and deeply personal. I wanted to finally share the truth.”

For Democrats, that truth may cut deep. For Trump and Republicans, it’s more ammunition to paint their rivals as divided and unsure of themselves.

And for Pete Buttigieg? The book may just fuel his case that America was ready for him all along.