Former Vice President Kamala Harris says Pete Buttigieg topped her list of potential running mates during the 2024 presidential campaign, but she ultimately concluded the pairing was “too big of a risk,” according to excerpts from her forthcoming memoir 107 Days.

“Buttigieg would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man,” Harris wrote in an advance copy of the book published by The Atlantic. She noted that her own identity as “a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man” already posed significant political hurdles in a general election.

“Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let’s just do it,” Harris wrote. “But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness.”

The disclosure sheds new light on the inner deliberations of Harris’s 2024 campaign, which ended in defeat to Donald Trump and JD Vance. Harris ultimately chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, citing his Midwestern background and governing experience.

Buttigieg — the former South Bend, Indiana mayor who later served as transportation secretary under President Joe Biden — was at the top of Harris’s eight-person shortlist, she wrote, praising him as “a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them.”

“I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends,” Harris added in the memoir.

The book also promises an unfiltered look at Harris’s campaign, from strategy sessions and debate prep to moments of personal frustration. A promotional description from publisher Simon & Schuster calls it “the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.”

107 Days is scheduled for release on Sept. 23. Representatives for Buttigieg did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)