With Vice President Kamala Harris scooping up endorsements for president from major Democratic Party figures, including President Joe Biden after dropping out on Sunday, her ascension to the top of her party’s ticket seems likely with the Democratic National Convention rapidly approaching.

As of early Sunday evening, no Democratic elected official had announced their intentions to challenge her for the nomination. 

The next question facing Democrats will be who Harris will pick as her running mate, with a slew of governors, senators and Cabinet officials being discussed as possible options to join her in the fight against former President Donald Trump and his newly-crowned running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Here’s a glance at who might be in the running to be the next Democratic nominee for vice president:

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper

As Democrats have zeroed in on North Carolina as a key state to compete for in their pursuit of 270 Electoral College votes — Biden lost the state to Trump by around one percentage point in 2020 — Harris has found herself frequently campaigning in the state and often doing so alongside the Tar Heel state’s term-limited governor, Roy Cooper.

Campaigning in the state for the seventh time this year last week, Harris called Cooper a “dear friend” and an “extraordinary leader,” noting they both served as their respective states’ attorneys general at the same time.

Cooper praised Harris himself, calling her “a fighter” and saying “I know she gets the job done.”

“And I know that she and Joe Biden need four more years to finish the job,” he said before she spoke in Fayetteville, N.C., on Thursday.

The longtime North Carolina politician served 16 years as the state attorney general, overlapping with Harris as she served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. He took office as governor in 2017 after beating incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes in a year Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the state by nearly 200,000 votes. Four years later, he won reelection, beating his Republican opponent by nearly five percentage points and outpacing Biden in the state by 150,000 votes. 

Now, Cooper will be out of a job come next yet. Governors can only serve two terms consecutively in North Carolina and with Democrats fighting to elect state Attorney General Josh Stein as his successor and win the state on the presidential level, he could prove to be a valuable asset to a Harris-led ticket. 

Cooper is also a white man from a southern, purple state who grew up on a tobacco farm, bringing starkly different biographical and aesthetic aspects to a ticket with Harris, who is Black and South Asian, grew up in Berkeley, Calif., and came up through the deep-blue state’s liberal political world. 

And, at 67 years old, he is less likely to seek the presidency down the road than some other prospective candidates, making him a more appealing choice to rising stars in the party eyeing a run in 2028 or 2032.

In a post on social media on Sunday, Cooper said that "Kamala Harris should be the next President."

"I’ve known @VP going back to our days as AGs, and she has what it takes to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country thoughtfully and with integrity," he wrote. "I look forward to campaigning for her as we work to win NC up and down the ticket."

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly

Another swing state Democrat, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly successfully won two Senate races in the last four years, succeeding his state’s longtime Republican Sen. John McCain. An astronaut and Navy veteran, Kelly got involved in politics through the fight for gun control after his wife, then-Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, was shot and gravely wounded in a 2011 assassination attempt.

On Sunday, he was among the first Democratic senators to endorse Harris after Biden dropped out.

“I couldn’t be more confident that Vice President @KamalaHarris is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future,” Kelly wrote on social media. “She has my support for the nomination, and Gabby and I will do everything we can to elect her President of the United States.”

The Hill reported last week that Kelly, along with Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, were the top names being discussed by top Democratic donors and strategists. 

Unlike some of his other Senate Democratic colleagues — including Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof — Kelly represents a state with a Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, who would appoint his successor were he elected alongside Harris. In Georgia, a vacancy created by Warnock or Ossof would be filled by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, all but ruling them out as contenders for the junior partner slot on the Democratic ticket.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is a Democratic darling, pushing for some of the party’s more progressive policies in deep-red Kentucky and winning elections anyway. At just 46, Beshear has won gubernatorial elections in his state twice already and his name was frequently discussed by party members as a possible candidate to replace Biden himself.

While Beshear did not endorse Harris nor announce his broader intentions on Sunday, the likelihood of him — or any other major Democrat — mounting a challenge against the sitting vice president with a little over 100 days until Election Day seems increasingly unlikely as many in the party rally around her.

Like Cooper, Beshear is also term-limited: Kentucky governors can serve more than two terms, but not consecutively. Having just begun his second term, Beshear will serve another three-plus years, but couldn’t run again until 2031.

While he’s clearly a rising star, Kentucky is far from a swing state and is almost certainly not in play for Democrats in the fall. And Beshear’s second term would end in December 2027, meaning he would be wrapping up his time in office amid the next Democratic presidential primary, setting him up to run for president then if seeking the top job were his priority. 

With Harris trailing behind Trump in many polls, Beshear and other potential running mates may not want to risk hitching their wagon to a potential losing cause.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

After a meteoric rise in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary — outlasting Harris and outpacing Biden in the first two contests — the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has found himself in Biden’s Cabinet and as one of the president’s most called upon surrogates.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig, a 42-year-old former naval officer and first openly gay Cabinet secretary in U.S. history, has made clear his aspirations for higher office and laid bare his ambition to get there. The young father of two has made more of being a small city mayor from the Midwest than most in record time and is more well-known to the public than some of the other governors and senators on this list due to his presidential campaign.

As a gay man, Buttigeig would be the first openly LGBTQ member of a major U.S. party’s presidential ticket and is often praised in his party for his ability to handle the media, including right-wing outlets like Fox News.

Appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show this week, Buttigieg previewed what his line of attack would be if he were pitted against the Republican vice presidential nominee in Vance.

“I know a lot of guys like JD Vance,” Buttigeig said. “When I got to Harvard, I found a lot of people like him who would say whatever they needed to to get ahead.”

“I actually watched this exact same process with somebody else I got to know in my days in the midwest, which was my former governor, Mike Pence,” he continued. “He got four glorious years, I guess, as vice president of the United States and it ended on the west front of the Capitol with Trump supporters proposing he be hanged… so I guess, maybe not as a politician but as a human being, what I’ll say is I hope things work out a little better for JD Vance than they did for Mike Pence.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker

A two-term Midwest governor and a billionaire to boot, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is another contender for the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination. Beyond his personal fortune, the member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain would help woo the business community, while also being able to point towards his more progressive policy achievements and positions as governor — including on abortion and gun control.

He’s already hosting the party’s convention in Chicago next month and his billions (as well as his rich friends) could come handy in what is shaping up to be the most expensive election in U.S. history.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

After beating a Trump-backed, far-right Republican in the governor’s race in 2022, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has emerged as a remarkably popular figure in a purple state amid a highly partisan era. 

An April poll of his state by Franklin & Marshall College found he had a 54% approval rating, including 57% of independents. Biden’s approval rating in that same poll among all registered voters was 35% and 27% of independents. Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat up for reelection this year, had just a 39% approval rating.

According to the Franklin & Marshall pollsters, Shapiro’s approval rating was the highest at that point in a Pennsylvania governor’s first term since Gov. Tom Ridge in early 1996. 

On Sunday, Shapiro quickly endorsed Harris.

“I’ve known Kamala Harris for nearly two decades — we’ve both been prosecutors, we’ve both stood up for the rule of law, we’ve both fought for the people and delivered results,” Shapiro said in a statement. “Kamala Harris is a patriot worthy of our support and she will continue the work of generations of Americans who came before us to protect our union, protect our democracy, and advance real freedom.”

“The best path forward for the Democratic Party is to quickly unite behind Vice President Harris and refocus on winning the presidency,” he added.

The 51-year-old Shapiro is just 18 months into his first term and is eligible to run for reelection in 2026, setting him up for a potential 2028 presidential run. But Pennsylvania is key to Democrats' hopes of winning back the White House and preserving their Senate majority in 2024 and Shapiro could provide a boost to those efforts if he were on the ticket.

He would be the first Jewish member of a major party’s presidential ticket since Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman was the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president in 2000.