In a matter of hours since President Joe Biden made the decision to step aside from the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris has largely cleared the field, racking up endorsements from nearly every major potential challenger for the Democratic nomination.

While there still has to be a formal process for the Democrats to pick their new presidential nominee ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, it doesn’t appear that any major figures will challenge Harris for the top of the ticket, leaving the vice president with one major question: Who will she pick as her own VP?

Speculation has centered on a number of key figures — and two of them, coincidentally, happened to be on the same television program on Monday morning singing her praises: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Both have endorsed Harris for president.

“Let me first say, I love my job. I love serving the people of Kentucky. The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believed I could further help my people and to help this country,” Beshear said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think if somebody calls you on that, what you do is at least listen.”

Beshear went on to launch into a critique of former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, slamming him for building his public persona off of his Appalachian heritage and his subsequent tearing down of the region his family hails from. Harris’ newly born campaign, less than 24 hours old, quickly shared a clip of Beshear’s attack on Vance. 

“I want the American people to know what a Kentuckian is and what they look like,” Beshear said. “Because let me just tell you that JD Vance ain’t from here. The nerve that he has to call the people of Kentucky, of Eastern Kentucky, lazy.”

“Listen, these are the hardworking coal miners that powered the Industrial Revolution, that created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. Powered us through two world wars. We should be thanking them, not calling them lazy,” the second-term governor continued.

Vance, who Harris’ eventual running mate will be pitted against, rose to prominence as a Marine veteran and venture capitalist who authored a bestselling memoir titled “Hillbilly Elegy” and subtitled “a memoir of a family and culture in crisis.” In the 2016 book — which was turned into a Netflix film starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close and which set him on a path to a successful Senate run in Ohio in 2022 — Vance writes of “welfare queens” he grew up around as he spent summers with his grandparents in Jackson, Ky., and growing up in Middletown, Ohio. Vance is returning to Middletown for a rally on Monday. In his memoir, he describes Appalachia, which stretches from western New York to northern Mississippi, as a “hub of misery.”

“Today was an opportunity to both support the vice president, but also to stand up for my people,” Beshear said on Monday. “Nobody calls us names, especially those that have worked hard for the betterment of this country.”

Beshear, who has won two gubernatorial elections in deep-red Kentucky, went on to slam Vance for saying “abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured” and for encouraging domestic abuse victims to stay in violent marriages.

“It's just plain wrong. He suggests that women should stay in abusive relationships. Listen, a domestic abuser isn't a man, he's a monster, and no one should support anyone having to stay in those relationships,” Beshear said.

For his part, Cooper praised Harris and ripped into Trump, but did not take on Vance directly. He said he spoke with Harris on the phone after Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.

“If you want a nominee who can put Donald Trump's destruction of Roe v. Wade at center stage, if you want a nominee who actually prosecuted criminals like Donald Trump, and if you want a nominee who can put Trump's age and fitness at the forefront. Kamala Harris is the person,” Cooper said on “Morning Joe.” “I appreciate people talking about me, but I think the focus right now needs to be on her this week, and she needs to concentrate on making sure that she secures his nomination and gets the campaign ready to go.”

When pressed by host Willie Geist if he would be open to joining Harris on the Democratic ticket, the term-limited North Carolina governor insisted that the focus be on her and that “the vice presidential conversation needs to occur later.”

But Cooper, who won his governor races in 2016 and 2020 as Hillary Clinton and then Biden narrowly lost his state to Trump on the presidential level, said he believes Harris rising to the top of the ticket could flip North Carolina for the Democrats. Harris has visited the state seven times this year, including as recently as last week, as Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon has described North Carolina as a key battleground state for their campaign.

“She came to Charlotte on the Dobbs anniversary and gave a passionate speech to a packed rally regarding women's reproductive freedom. You could tell the excitement in the room,” Cooper said. “She's going to bring that excitement to the people that we need to bring to the polls, the young people, women, suburban women who can vote either Republican or Democratic.”

Cooper and Harris go a ways back: 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. It’s her time as attorney general that Harris often cites as helping build the groundwork for her eventual relationship with Biden, as she served alongside his son Beau when he was Delaware’s attorney general.

In Fayetteville, N.C., last week, Harris called Cooper a “dear friend” and an “extraordinary leader.” Beshear is also a former state attorney general, though he overlapped with Harris for just a year. At a roundtable discussion about marijuana reform in March, Harris praised Beshear as “an extraordinary leader in many ways, not only for the people of Kentucky but nationally,” calling his work on the issue “inspirational to a lot of others.”

At least one other potential vice presidential nominee contender took themselves out of the running on Monday: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. She told reporters in her state “I’m not leaving Michigan” and said “I know everyone is always suspicious,” but that she’s “not going anywhere.”