Harris Begins Final Phase of Accelerated V.P. Search

The law firm hired by the Harris campaign to investigate potential vice-presidential candidates has completed its work, leaving the final decision — the most important yet of the still-new campaign — squarely in Vice President Kamala Harris’s hands.

Covington & Burling, the Washington law firm tasked with the vetting, completed the job on Thursday afternoon and turned over its findings to Ms. Harris, according to two people briefed on the process.

Ms. Harris has blocked off several hours on her calendar this weekend to meet with the men being considered to join the ticket, according to two people who had viewed her schedule and who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process. The Harris campaign has suggested it will announce the decision by Tuesday evening, when the vice president and her to-be-named running mate begin a five-day tour of presidential battleground states, starting in Philadelphia.

Several of the contenders, including Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, canceled events this weekend, reflecting both a desire to be available for those conversations and to avoid drawing additional speculation from the news media about their chances.

The choice of a running mate is one of the most consequential decisions of Ms. Harris’s political career, one that can pay dividends in votes and years of counsel or backfire disastrously. In some ways, Ms. Harris is setting a direction for the future of the party, a reality she intimately understands given her own head-spinning ascension to the top of the ticket.

But unlike previous nominees, who spent months considering candidates, she must make her decision on a compressed timeline. The shortened process clashes with what some former aides described as her typically deliberative decision-making approach.