Joe Biden’s top running-mate contenders emerge
Washington is buzzing with the names of candidates to join Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Joe Biden is entering his most crucial week since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, as he decides which woman he will ask to be his running mate.
Three black women have risen to be top contenders, according to people close to the campaign, after an unusually public vetting process that has coincided with the coronavirus pandemic. Candidates and their allies have been making their final pitches to Biden’s team in recent days in phone calls and virtual meetings, the people said.
California Representative Karen Bass and former national security adviser Susan Rice have been gaining traction in recent weeks, joining California Senator Kamala Harris as top candidates of colour who are under consideration, according to the people close to the campaign.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of Mr Biden’s Democratic primary opponents, also remains among the leading contenders, the people said. Warren, who has advised Mr Biden on economic policy, remains popular among the party’s liberal base and has been promoted by a number of leading Biden allies.
Mr Biden has said he will make his decision this week, but an announcement is likely to come the week of August 10 ahead of the Democratic National Convention, according to a person familiar with the timing. “I’m going to have a choice the first week in August, and I promise I’ll let you know when I do,” Mr Biden said during a news conference last Tuesday.
The Biden campaign declined to comment on his search. More than a dozen people close to the campaign described the process in interviews.
In making his decision, the 77-year-old former vice president could be choosing a future leader of the Democratic Party, and he has been weighing attributes such as his comfort level with the contenders and how they might help him replicate the relationship he maintained with former president Barack Obama during their eight years in office, people familiar with the process said.
Mr Biden recently asked Ms Bass to take a walk with him after he paid respects to the late civil rights leader John Lewis in the Capitol, stoking speculation about her rising prospects.
Ms Bass, who has the support of several Democrats, has said she has no aspirations for a future presidential bid.
“I think he needs a partner,” Ms Bass said in an interview on Friday. “To me, when he is sworn in as president in January, it’s going to be like a hurricane,” she said, referring to the federal response that will be needed to address the pandemic.
Mr Biden, who values personal relationships and has said he wants to have a good rapport with his running mate, has been drawn to Ms Rice because of their previous working relationship, people familiar with the search said.
Ms Rice has garnered support from an extensive network of Obama alumni, even as some have expressed concerns over the potential for President Donald Trump to revive criticism of her handling of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Ms Rice, who also served as United Nations ambassador, has never sought elected office.
Senator Harris, a former presidential candidate, was seen as a frontrunner for the job after Mr Biden made several complimentary remarks about her. But some Biden donors and staffers have cautioned the campaign in recent days against selecting her as his running mate, citing the former prosecutor’s broadside against him during the first primary debate last June. Those donors have questioned her loyalty to Mr Biden, according to people familiar with the conversations, describing her as too ambitious.
Mr Biden’s campaign manager appeared to dismiss such criticism in a tweet that didn’t name Senator Harris.
“Our campaign is full of ambitious women going all out for Joe Biden,” Jen O’Malley Dillon tweeted Wednesday. “He will make this decision, and this is clear: whoever he chooses from the very qualified options to help him win & unite the country, she’ll be one too.” Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defended Senator Harris in an interview, calling it “very unfair.” “Do we ever hear anyone that’s a man, saying he’s too ambitious? Why do they say her? I think it’s because she’s a woman,” he said.
Mr Biden wasn’t asked about the criticism of Senator Harris at a recent press conference, but an Associated Press photograph of his notes showed he was prepared to defend the senator. His notes, which described her as “talented” and a “great help to the campaign,” also said he does “not hold grudges”. Her supporters in Mr Biden’s network point to Senator Harris’s fundraising abilities, governing experience and past friendship with Beau Biden, the former vice president’s late son.
In a virtual event on Friday for Black Girls Lead 2020, Senator Harris offered some advice: “There will be a resistance to your ambition, there will be people who say to you, ‘You are out of your lane’, because they are burdened by only having the capacity to see what has always been instead of what can be,” she said. “But don’t you let that burden you.” A handful of other candidates remain in the mix, and people close to Mr Biden’s team have stressed that no one has been eliminated.
A campaign in favour of Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, a former Army officer who lost her legs in the Iraq War, has been under way in recent weeks, championed by VoteVets, a progressive group of veterans. Florida Representative Val Demings, a former police chief, also has garnered support from her state’s congressional delegation.
In a recent interview with a Detroit television station, Mr Biden said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was still on his list of potential candidates. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is the only Latina still believed to be under consideration.
Former Georgia politician Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms have seen their stock decline in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the search, who cautioned that the selection process remains fluid.
Mr Reid said in the interview that while Mr Biden was giving some serious consideration to selecting a black woman, he was still looking at Senator Warren, Governor Whitmer and Congresswoman Duckworth.
He cautioned that “to narrow the list to two or three people at this stage, I don’t think it’s been narrowed in the minds of Biden” or former Connecticut Senator. Chris Dodd, who is helping to lead Mr. Biden’s search.
The Wall Street Journal
