The decision by Vice President Kamala Harris to choose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate is raising questions among some Jewish leaders about whether a pressure campaign led by anti-Israel activists to thwart Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s nomination ultimately played a part in influencing the selection process.

Harris formally announced her pick in a text message to supporters of her campaign on Tuesday morning. “Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families,” she said. “I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.” 

The selection comes amid Democratic concerns over anti-Israel protests at the party’s convention in Chicago this month. Harris will appear with Walz at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening.

In recent weeks, Shapiro had faced mounting resistance from an outspoken coalition of far-left organizers who expressed vehement opposition to Shapiro over his staunch support for Israel and his criticism of extreme anti-Israel campus protesters, among other issues.

The campaign drew allegations of antisemitism for targeting Shapiro, an observant Jew whose positions on Israel were largely aligned with other contenders who emerged on the vice presidential short list, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Walz, the latter of whom had been favored by progressives. The rhetoric used by the left-wing campaign, including tagging Shapiro as “Genocide Josh,” also faced criticism for singling out the only Jewish candidate under serious consideration.

For some observers who had been cautiously excited by the possibility of a Jewish running mate — the first since 2000 — the organized campaign was a dismaying confirmation of concerns that Shapiro’s rise as a vice presidential prospect could be derailed amid a recent surge of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“There are all kinds of legitimate factors that go into a vice-presidential pick, but there was an obvious and concerted anti-Shapiro effort that tapped into the antisemitic fervor coursing through our country,” said Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union. “Irrespective of the reasons Ms. Harris had,” he told Jewish Insider, Shapiro’s far-left opponents “will surely declare victory.”

With that in mind, Diament cautioned that Harris “will have to take other steps to undermine those extremists to show their claims are false.”

Brett Goldman, a founder of Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania and a political consultant in Philadelphia, said in an interview with JI that he viewed the Shapiro snub as a sign that Harris “is succumbing to pressure from the left” — whose relative electoral power, he suggested, has been overstated.

But despite his disappointment, Goldman clarified that his group would still back Harris’ campaign. “It’s unfortunate, and it sucks that it’s not Josh,” he said, describing the effort to block Shapiro as “based in” antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “But we still have an election to win.”

Jared Solomon, a Jewish state representative in Philadelphia now running for attorney general, a role previously held by Shapiro, said he regarded the popular Pennsylvania governor as “by far the best pick” for vice president, citing how he “brings faith into the conversation in an approachable, inclusive way.”

“I would say to the critics, specifically on his position regarding Israel, I would be hard-pressed to see much daylight between Josh and the other contenders,” he told JI. “I believe that he, like the others, thinks the United States is a friend of Israel” and “like the others, believes in a two-state solution.”

The anti-Shapiro campaign, Solomon added, “begs the question: Why is he, unlike the other candidates, facing so much pushback?”

Even as the anti-Shapiro campaign faced charges of antisemitism, some observers cast skepticism on suggestions that his Jewish faith may ultimately have impeded his chances of joining the top of the ticket.

“I would point out that for the one previous example we have of a Jewish running mate, Joe Lieberman was a net help electorally to the ticket,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) said in a text message to JI. “I saw it firsthand in Northeast Philadelphia where some heavily Russian Jewish precincts switched from voting Republican to Democratic, and then promptly switched back to Republican again in 2004.”

Given that precedent, Boyle said he “genuinely” did not believe that Shapiro was passed over “because of the fact he’s Jewish.”

Larry Ceisler, a Democratic political operative in Pennsylvania who has known Shapiro for decades, argued that the far left would ultimately have come to terms with the governor if he had been picked as a running mate. “Where were they going to go?” he said. 

“What’s frustrating for me is that they don’t know Josh,” Ceisler told JI. “So much of the criticism has been uninformed.”