‘Just wasn’t the right time’: NC Gov. Roy Cooper takes himself out of running for Harris VP
The day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris moved up to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper joined the veepstakes.
But he privately declined from the start to be considered, according to a source close to the governor.
And on Monday evening, he publicly took himself out of the running, saying it “just wasn’t the right time.”
“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President. I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Cooper posted on social media.
“As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins,” he said.
Earlier Monday evening, The New York Times first reported that Cooper has withdrawn from the race, prompting the public statement.
Cooper and Harris served as state attorneys general at the same time, and Cooper had a record of winning elections and on his way out of office at the end of the year running a swing state.
Harris’ campaign declined to comment to McClatchy.
Cooper has declined to comment about being featured on lists of possible running mates. On Monday night, he spoke on a “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call with tens of thousands of other white men watching, but did not address the reports about the vice presidential job.
On Thursday, at his first Harris campaign event since the Democratic presidential race was upended, Cooper said he trusted Harris to make the right decision for VP and that he wanted her to “choose the person that gives her the best chance to win.”
One concern of some Democrats had been that when Cooper is out of state, the acting governor is Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor. But North Carolina’s governor has much less power than other states, as law and the constitution delivers most of the power to the General Assembly.
The source close to Cooper said he didn’t think now was the right time to run for vice president, but that he also believed Robinson would bring an element of chaos to Harris’ campaign that she didn’t need.
The source said they could imagine Cooper on a campaign bus in Michigan trying to talk with voters, only to hear that Robinson did something back home that required Cooper’s immediate attention.
But with Cooper’s name circulating, he felt that publicly bowing out could slow momentum for Harris, the source said. Cooper didn’t want his lack of interest to be misconstrued as looking like he wasn’t on Harris’ team. So he stayed quiet.
