No one knows the importance of selecting the right running mate better than Vice President Kamala Harris. With Harris now the leading candidate to succeed President Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, a look at the top contenders to be on the ticket.Andy BeshearThe Kentucky governor secured his reputation as a rising party star by beating Donald Trump-endorsed candidates in a Republican stronghold.Beshear displayed a disciplined, tenacious style in winning reelection last year by defeating then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron. The governor has urged Democrats to follow his winning formula by focusing on the everyday concerns of Americans, from good-paying jobs to quality education and health care.Beshear, 46, supports abortion rights, but in Kentucky, he has tailored his message to push back against what he calls an extreme ban that lacks exceptions for rape and incest victims.He won widespread praise for his empathy and attention to detail in guiding the Bluegrass State through the COVID-19 pandemic and leading the response to tornadoes and flooding that caused massive damage. He honed his speaking skills by holding regular news conferences that often last an hour or so.Beshear has presided over record economic growth in Kentucky, and he typically begins his briefings by promoting the state's latest economic wins. He frequently mentions his Christian faith and how it guides his policymaking.A lawyer by trade, Beshear won election as state attorney general in 2015. He then unseated Trump-backed Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019.Beshear entered politics with a strong pedigree as the son of two-term Gov. Steve Beshear, but has faced tougher political obstacles. Andy Beshear, unlike his father, has dealt with an entirely GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican lawmakers have stymied some of his priorities. One of them is state-funded preschool for every Kentucky 4-year-old.— By Bruce SchreinerRoy CooperThe North Carolina governor has won six statewide general elections over two decades in a state where Republicans routinely prevail in similar federal races and also control the legislature.Cooper, 67, has received strong job-approval ratings as governor, benefiting from a booming state economy for which his administration and lawmakers take credit. He also portrays himself as a fighter for public education and abortion rights. While Cooper finally persuaded GOP legislators last year to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, other efforts have been thwarted by a General Assembly with veto-proof majorities that has eroded his formal powers.A native of small-town Nash County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Raleigh, Cooper was a high school quarterback and head of the Young Democrats at the University of North Carolina, where he obtained both his undergraduate and law degrees. "Coop," as he was known to friends, came home and worked at his father's law firm.Cooper upset the Democratic incumbent in a 1986 state House primary race and was elected to the General Assembly. He served 14 years there and later became the Senate majority leader.Cooper was elected attorney general in 2000, a position he held for 16 years. In that post, he is likely best known nationally for declaring three former Duke University lacrosse players innocent after they were accused of sexual assault by an escort service dancer.Cooper unseated another incumbent in 2016, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory by roughly 10,000 votes. A top campaign issue was the "bathroom bill" that McCrory signed requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that corresponded with the sex on their birth certificates. As governor, Cooper quickly reached an agreement with legislators to partially repeal the law.His time as governor also was marked by restricting business and school activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. He won reelection in 2020 by 4.5 percentage points even as Trump won the state's electoral votes.Cooper and his wife, Kristin, have three grown daughters.— By Gary RobertsonMark KellyThe Arizona senator leveraged his career as an astronaut to build a brand as a moderate in a state that long supported Republicans.In his two campaigns — the first in 2020 to finish the term of the late Republican Sen. John McCain and the second two years later for a full term — Kelly has earned more votes than any other Democrat on the ballot. He outpolled Biden, who narrowly won Arizona, by 2 percentage points in 2020.Kelly's first turn in the national political spotlight came through tragedy. His wife, then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. The shooting left six people dead and spawned an early reckoning with political violence and partisan rancor.Giffords' survival made her a national inspiration but snuffed out a promising political career of her own. She and Kelly went on to found a gun-control advocacy group, and Giffords has been a powerful surrogate as Kelly has taken her place in politics.In the Senate, Kelly has focused on national security and the military as well as the drought plaguing the U.S. West. He was instrumental in crafting the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill signed by Biden to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.Kelly was a Navy test pilot and flew 39 combat missions during the Gulf War before joining NASA, where he flew three missions on the space shuttle.Originally from New Jersey, he settled with Giffords in Tucson after retiring from NASA and the Navy.Unlike Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat two years before Kelly but later left the party to become an independent, Kelly has managed to retain the support of the party's grassroots base without alienating independent voters. —By Jonathan J. CooperJosh ShapiroShapiro is halfway through his second year as Pennsylvania's governor after easily winning his last election by trouncing a far-right, Trump-endorsed candidate.Shapiro, 51, has been a surrogate for Biden, backing the president in appearances on cable networks, and has years of experience making Trump the focus of his attacks, first as state attorney general and now as governor.He has won three statewide races — two as attorney general, one as governor — with a tightly scripted, disciplined campaign style, offering voters something of a lower-key alternative to the state's brash political star, Sen. John Fetterman.As governor, Shapiro has begun to shed a buttoned-down public demeanor and become more confident and plain-spoken. In one recent MSNBC appearance, he said Trump should "quit whining."Shapiro, who is Jewish, has aggressively confronted what he viewed as antisemitism cropping up from pro-Palestinian demonstrations and has professed solidarity with Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas.He is a staunch proponent of abortion rights in Pennsylvania and routinely promotes his victories in court against Trump, including beating back challenges to the 2020 election results.He also has positioned himself as a moderate on energy issues in the nation's No. 2 natural gas state and plays up the need for bipartisanship in the politically divided state government.— By Marc Levy While there is lots of speculation about who Harris would choose to serve as her running mate should she secure the Democratic nod, Beshear, Cooper, Kelly and Shapiro aren't the only names being floated by pundits and others. Here's a look at some other political figures who are getting attention as the public speculates who would be Harris' No. 2.J.B. PritzkerIllinois Gov. JB Pritzker took office in 2019. Before serving as governor, Pritzker founded a successful nonprofit tech-focused small business incubator in Chicago.He is the richest politician holding office in the U.S., is an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, a former private equity investor and philanthropist. His net worth of $3.4 billion puts him at No. 250 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.Pritzker, who is 59, won the nomination for governor in 2018, besting a crowded Democratic field. He beat one-term incumbent Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and inherited mountains of state debt, unpaid bills and ratings by Wall Street credit houses just above junk status because of Rauner's two-year feud with legislative Democrats that resulted in the state going without a budget plan.Working with Democratic supermajorities in the House and Senate, Pritzker has boasted balanced budgets and paid down billions of dollars in debt, prompting multiple credit upgrades. He also has overseen increased education funding, the centralization of early childhood services, and new laws to make health insurance more comprehensive, accessible and affordable.After receiving generally high marks for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, he defeated a Trump-endorsed MAGA Republican with 55% of the vote, becoming the first Illinois governor to be elected to a second term in 16 years. He then promptly delivered a victory speech that sounded like it came from a national candidate, denouncing Trump and asking, “Are you ready to fight?”Even before his reelection, when there was speculation Biden might not seek a second term, Pritzker was criticized for saying he was happy being governor while traveling to the early primary state of New Hampshire and campaigning for or funding Democratic candidates nationally. And he's continued to boost his coast-to-coast profile by bankrolling a political organization called “Think Big America” that aims to protect abortion rights and has supported state constitutional amendments to strengthen those protections in Ohio, Arizona and Nevada.— By John O'Connor Gavin NewsomCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom is a native of San Francisco who got involved in politics by volunteering for Willie Brown’s 1995 campaign for mayor. Two years later, Mayor Brown appointed Newsom to a vacant seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where he was later elected and reelected.Newsom then became mayor himself and received national attention in 2004 when he directed the San Francisco clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.He was elected lieutenant governor in 2010 and unapologetically pushed a progressive agenda when he successfully ran for governor eight years later. Now in his second term, he says he is “standing up for California values — from civil rights, to immigration, environmental protection, access to quality schools at all levels, and justice,” according to his official bio.Newsom, 56, has maintained a high national profile this year, challenging Republican presidential candidates in public appearances despite not being a candidate himself. He has been one of Biden’s staunchest defenders even as criticism mounted following the president’s faltering debate performance. During an early July stop in New Hampshire on behalf of the president, Newsom said of Biden: “He’s going to be our nominee.”The governor was a baseball star at Santa Clara University. After graduating, he worked briefly in sales before starting a retail wine shop that grew into the PlumpJack Group, which includes restaurants, resorts and vineyards throughout California.He is married to Jennifer Siebel Newsom. They have four children.— By Christopher Weber Gretchen WhitmerMichigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has rapidly risen in prominence within the Democratic Party since first winning the 2018 gubernatorial election after serving for a decade and a half in the state Legislature.Her national profile grew significantly during the final years of Donald Trump’s presidency when she emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most effective voices opposing the then-president. She delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address and frequently clashed with him over how the federal government handled the COVID-19 pandemic.Near the end of 2020, the FBI uncovered a plot to kidnap Whitmer, which led to nine men either being convicted by jury or pleading guilty.In her 2022 reelection campaign, Whitmer focused on reproductive rights, resulting in a double-digit victory and passage of a voter-approved measure codifying abortion rights in the state. Her party also flipped both chambers of the state Legislature, securing a Democratic trifecta for the first time in nearly four decades.The massive Democratic victories in a swing state that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election positioned Whitmer as a leading advocate for reproductive freedom and a strong contender for a future presidential nomination.Whitmer — who was one of the top surrogates for Biden’s reelection campaign — has long deflected questions about whether she has interest in higher office, telling The Associated Press earlier this month that she would not step in as a candidate this year if Biden were to step aside.But the 52-year-old Democrat has been working to boost her national profile. She met with Biden in 2020 as he considered who to select as a running mate and she is currently on a national press tour for her new memoir. Whitmer has also set up a national political action committee that has raised millions this election cycle.— By Joey Cappelletti Pete ButtigiegSecretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has served in Biden's cabinet since the early days of Biden's presidency. He was sworn in in February 2021. Before he served as the transportation secretary, Buttigieg unsuccessfully competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 Democratic primary. Prior to running for president, Buttigieg was virtually unheard of on the national stage. Buttigieg, who previously served as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, ran as a centrist Democrat in the 2020 race. In addition to leaning on his experience as mayor, Buttigieg also leaned on his military service in Afghanistan. He served for seven years in the U.S. Navy Reserve.Additionally, Buttigieg, an openly gay man, broke barriers during the 2020 primary run. He was the first-ever gay man to earn presidential primary delegates. In becoming transportation secretary, Buttigieg broke barriers again by becoming the first LGBTQ+ person to be confirmed for a cabinet position by the U.S. Senate.In his current position, Buttigieg has seen some criticism for the Transportation Department's early handling of a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.Buttigieg, who is 42, and his husband Chasten have two children. If he were to serve as the Democratic nominee's running mate — Buttigieg would be the first openly LGBTQ+ person to do so.