Earlier Tuesday evening, Politico may have spoiled a key 2020 campaign moment for their allies and dearly beloved friends in the Biden campaign by accidentally announcing Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate.
Originally published Monday morning, the story “Running-mate rundown: Tracking Joe Biden’s VP pick” was penned by eight Politico reporters that meant to summarize 12 different women that Biden could pick, but when it came to Harris’s entry, the title read, “Biden’s VP Pick.”
Oops.
Each person’s rundown included a brief explainer about the person and their ties to Biden, their favorability ratings, “why Biden should pick her,” “why he shouldn’t,” and one of those reporters with an audio report.
But for Harris, this was written in italics before her biographical summary and included what’s either a hypothetical or an embargoed/unpublished quote from Biden explaining his “pick”:
Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris to become his running mate for the 2020 election on Aug. 1, two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, after keeping his choice close to the chest for months.
In his announcement, Biden called Harris “a worthy opponent and a worthy running mate,” alluding to the pair’s rivalry during the earlier stages of the Democratic primary. She will bring her experience as a prosecutor, household name recognition, and skill as a debater to the ticket.
Hours earlier, Biden told reporters that he would “have a choice in the first week in August, and I promise I'll let you know when I do.”
Politico quickly scrubbed this version of Harris’s entry from their article, issuing no correction or update explaining why they had published such an announcement.
Talk about a lack of transparency.
However, Politico VP of Marketing and Communication Brad Dayspring told our friend Joseph Wulfsohn at FoxNews.com that it was done so in error and only “placeholder text” that “was mistakenly published to the site.”
“We regret the error and any confusion that it caused,” he added.
No kidding, Brad. Predictably, such a flub was roundly mocked on Twitter.
