In Washington, D.C., Three people who know about the situation say that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper didn’t run for Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate because he was afraid that his Republican lieutenant governor would try to take over if he left the state to campaign for the Democrats.
In a statement released Monday night, Cooper said he would not be running for Harris’s vice president. He said he was “honored” to be considered, but “this just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket.” Two of the people said that the 67-year-old governor dropped out of the race long before Harris’s screening process started and never turned in the required paperwork. All three agreed to remain anonymous in order to talk about the private search process.
Harris’s search is still going on, and her teams of lawyers and political aides are still looking over information on a list of possibilities that is getting shorter.
People say that Harris’s team was looking at about a dozen possible candidates at first, but now that the field has shrunk, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly are seen as two of the front-runners.
Cooper, who used to be the head of the Democratic Governors Association, has known Harris since they were both state attorneys general and is friends with her. People thought that his possible nomination would help Harris win North Carolina, which is the Democrats’ only real chance to add states to their 2020 plan.
The state law says that North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is the GOP’s choice to replace Cooper because his term is up, can act as governor when the Democrat is out of the state.
Two people who were there say that Cooper is worried about what Robinson might do if he takes a lot of time off for campaign trips. Cooper’s lawyers and some outside experts don’t think Robinson would use the powers that come with being governor, like signing executive orders. One person who knows about the situation said that the governor was worried that Robinson would try to do something that could lead to lawsuits and other distractions in North Carolina, which is one of the most important states in the country for both the presidential and gubernatorial races.
Robinson is a very strong conservative, and he has said things like “child sacrifice” about abortion. Robinson has said that men should be in charge of the church and society in several church sermons. He once thought that the people who led the first birth control effort in the U.S. were all “witches.” He has used words like “filth” and “maggots” to talk about LGBTQ people.
Cooper and Harris went to campaign events together in Greensboro and Fayetteville in the weeks before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. When asked about the screening process, he dodged the question.
He recently told reporters in North Carolina, “I trust her to make the right choice.”
Cooper is leaving his job as governor in January. He was already seen as a possible Cabinet member in a future Democratic administration because he is loyal to the party and has been able to win policy victories on health care and energy in a state where the GOP-controlled legislature is trying to weaken him.
Since 1980, North Carolina has always voted for the Republican ticket in presidential elections. The only time they didn’t was in 2008 when they voted for Donald Trump.
Since the 1980s, Cooper has never lost a race for state office. This includes all six statewide general elections since 2000. He has benefited from the state’s economy growing quickly, which used to be based on textiles and tobacco but is now based on science and clean energy. He and GOP lawmakers reluctantly share credit for this success. He also often acts like he is a supporter of public schools and abortion rights.
Many of his legislative attempts have been thwarted by a General Assembly where Republicans hold a majority that can’t be vetoed. These Republicans took away some of his powers before he even took office.
The New York Times was the first to report that Cooper had quit the process, but they didn’t say when he did it or why he did it. The Harris team wouldn’t say anything.
