Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is looking for his Joe Biden. The former vice president, who has committed to having a woman on the…
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is looking for his Joe Biden.
The former vice president, who has committed to having a woman on the presidential ticket, has begun the vetting process for a running mate after announcing his vice presidential selection committee on April 30. He has expressed to donors he would like the vetting process done by July.
Since he made that commitment to pick a woman as his running mate, several names have been floated, including some of his former Democratic opponents such as Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. (Klobuchar has since removed herself from consideration.)
Biden is also facing fresh calls to choose a woman of color after following the death of George Floyd, which led to nationwide protests against police violence and systemic racism.
The Democratic nominee has openly talked about some candidates he’s considering and said he has sought advice on the decision from former President Barack Obama.
During a virtual fundraiser in April, Biden said Obama told him to find someone who has experience where the former vice president is lacking, a dynamic that worked well between the two. Biden noted he is looking for vice presidential candidate with whom he can be «simpatico.»
Here’s a look at some of the women mentioned as possible running mates for Biden. All would be the first female vice president in U. S. history if Democrats win the White House in November.
Abrams was the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia in 2018. After losing that race by a fraction of the overall vote, she announced a nonprofit group called Fair Fight 2020, which staffs and funds voter protection teams in battleground states across the country. She is the former minority leader for the Georgia House of Representatives.
Abrams initially said she wasn’t interested in being a vice presidential candidate but said recently she would be “honored” to be considered Biden’s running mate.
“I would be honored to be on the campaign trail as a running mate,” she told the podcast “Pod Save America,” hosted by former members of the Obama administration, last week. “But that is a process that you can’t campaign for, and I’m not campaigning for. I’m just being straightforward.”
In March 2019, Biden met with Abrams before he announced he was running for president. Their meeting fueled speculation that the former vice president was going to jump into the race (which he did a month later) and that Abrams would be his running mate. Rumors were floated that Abrams herself was going to jump into the 2020 presidential primary.
If chosen, she would be the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket.
The senator from Wisconsin is the first openly gay person elected to the Senate and hails from a state Democrats need to win in November. Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016, and it is a battleground state that Republicans and Democrats have invested resources in.
Tuesday, Biden was named the winner of the Democratic primary in Wisconsin, and a liberal judge knocked a conservative incumbent off the state Supreme Court, which has some Democrats optimistic about the party’s chances in the general election. Baldwin endorsed Biden Wednesday.
Bottoms endorsed Biden in the early stages of the primary election, and has been serving as a key surrogate for his campaign since June 2019. If chosen, she would be the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket.
Atlanta’s 60th mayor, and only the second Black woman to serve in that role, Lance Bottoms emerged as a leading figure on Biden’s short list amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks.
Floyd was a Black man died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes
Nearly three weeks after his death, Rayshard Brooks was shot outside an Atlanta Wendy’s after officers responded to a call about a man being asleep in his car in the drive-through lane.
Bottoms, 50, moved quickly to fire the police officer who shot Brooks, and the incident led to the resignation of Police Chief Erika Shields, a Bottoms ally who will remain in the department.
Demings, a two-term member of Congress, told The Washington Post last month “it’s such an honor” that her name has been mentioned as a possible vice president pick.
Before being elected to Congress in 2016, Demings was chief of the Orlando Police Department, the first woman to hold the position. If chosen, she would be the first black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket.
