Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican nominee for vice president, said on Tuesday morning that if Vice President Kamala Harris did not select Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, then the decision would be due to what he identified as antisemitism within the Democratic Party.

“If it’s not Josh Shapiro,” Vance told radio host Hugh Hewitt hours before Harris announced she had chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “I think they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of antisemitism in their own caucus and in their own party. I think it’s disgraceful the Democrats have gotten to this point where it’s even an open conversation.”

Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat who was among the finalists on the vice presidential short list, had in recent weeks faced growing resistance from an organized campaign led by far-left activists who expressed vehement opposition to his support for Israel and criticism of extreme anti-Israel campus protesters.

The campaign drew charges of antisemitism for singling out Shapiro, the only Jewish contender under serious consideration, whose views on Israel largely aligned with other candidates including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Walz, the latter of whom emerged as a progressive favorite.

While Shapiro and Harris had for the most part publicly ignored the far-left pressure campaign, Vance suggested that it damaged the Democratic Party’s ability to counter antisemitism from within its own ranks.

Shapiro, he said, “has in some ways had to run away from a lot of his biography over the last few months because the far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish American.”

“We have to be honest about this fact,” Vance told Hewitt. “We have to call it out.”