In this episode, hosts Chuck and Sam are joined by journalist Tyler Pager to unpack behind-the-scenes moments from Kamala Harris’s 2020 campaign — specifically, the surprising and fast-paced process of selecting her running mate. Tyler shares a quirky but revealing anecdote: as Harris narrowed her choices down to Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro, and Mark Kelly, her team asked each man what he wanted to drink during their interview. Shapiro and Kelly went with water. Walz asked for a Diet Mountain Dew — a seemingly trivial moment that became part of an unusual and rapid vetting process.

Despite Kamala’s desire to lean on polling data, her aides concluded that none of the three offered a clear statistical advantage. In the end, Harris relied on gut feeling and personal chemistry — ultimately choosing Walz because she felt she connected best with him. The segment sparks a broader conversation about the limits of political data, especially when candidates have varying levels of national recognition. Chuck and Sam reflect on how, in politics, sometimes the final call comes down to instinct over spreadsheets.

Transcript

**Sam Stone: **Chuck and I were just amazed going through all of this here. One of the stories, Tyler, that kind of blew our minds is how Kamala Harris ended up settling on Tim Walz and a story about a diet Mountain Dew. Can you tell us what that's about?

**Tyler Pager: **Yeah, so Kamala Harris obviously had a very truncated period to run her campaign and, of course, make her decision about who her running mate would be. That is usually a process that candidates take months to figure out. And she basically had a few weeks, and it ultimately ended up with just a few days.

And so at the end of the process, she's down to three final candidates, Tim Walls, Josh Shapiro, and Mark Kelly. She invites the three of them to her campaign. the vice president's residence in Washington, D.C., for an interview. As part of that interview, Kamala Harris' aides asked the three men what they would like to drink.

Shapiro and Kelly asked for water, and Tim Walls asked for a Diet Mountain Dew. I think what's interesting about this selection process is Kamala Harris was really trying to get an answer based in data. She wanted her staff to say, or to be able to provide to her,

which of the three men would best help her win based on polling? Like, what is a poll show? Does it make a clear argument that Shapiro is better than Walls or Walls is better than Kelly? What does the data show? And ultimately, what they tell her is the data shows you can win with all three of those candidates.

Not one of them is going to be a significantly better choice for you based on the polling. And so ultimately what she decides and how she lands on Tim Walls is about chemistry and that she felt best, she gelled best with him of those three finalists.

**Chuck Warren: **Well, that tells you something about data, though. There's no way Waltz was the best one. I mean, just watching him on TV and camera. I mean, I know votes he lost just because of how he was. And that's an interesting point for future campaigns is that, you know, you want to get the data.

But at the end of the day, it's a it's a person to person eyeball to eyeball decision in a lot of ways.

**Sam Stone: **Yeah. I guess I'd ask, Chuck, is the data going to be accurate? Because you and I do a lot of data work.

Is the data going to be accurate when you're talking about one candidate in Shapiro that does have actual name ID and recognition and two in Mark Kelly… and Tim Walz, who are essentially unknown, where people are just going on the most basic information imagined.

**Chuck Warren: **Yeah, I don't know. It's weird.

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