![]() ![]() ![]() Yet there is little evidence to support the conventional wisdom that vice-presidential candidates influence general election outcomes in a significant way. Still others believe he should choose a candidate with roots in the industrial Midwest, a region critically important to winning the Electoral College. Abrams, who has been remarkably forward about her interest in the job, said recently she would have “concerns” if Biden didn’t choose a woman of color to be his running mate.īut Biden is also heeding calls from the left wing of the party to select a more liberal running mate, like Warren, who they believe would help him appeal to progressives and younger voters skeptical of his candidacy. The South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement ahead of the state’s primary revived Biden’s lagging campaign, has encouraged him to choose an African American woman, even supplying a list of possible candidates, among them Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms. There is a particularly strong push for him to choose a black woman to energize African American voters in November and demonstrate that the party does not take for granted its most reliable constituency. Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Imagesīiden is facing intensifying pressure, including from some of his most prominent allies, to choose a woman of color. Kamala Harris endorses Joe Biden during a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan, on 9 March. Also rumored to be in contention are Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who Biden said “made my list” months before she became a prominent national leader confronting the coronavirus, and Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia. In an interview last week, Biden told a Pittsburgh radio station that he would select Michelle Obama as his running mate “in a heartbeat” but suspected that she has no “desire to live near the White House again”.Īmong those repeatedly mentioned as possibilities are his former rivals: Senators Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Though Biden has been coy about his preferences, he has been consistent in his requirement that his running mate be someone he “completely trusts” to carry out his agenda yet is unafraid to challenge him on major decisions. That team will likely narrow the pool to between two and five candidates, he has said. He plans to announce an advisory panel to oversee his search by 1 May. Stressing the importance of governing experience and leadership, Biden has also said he wants someone who is prepared to step into the presidency on “Day One” in the event that his health deteriorates or, in his words, “lightning strikes and I die”. He would be the oldest president ever inaugurated, at 78, and has said he will choose a younger running mate. Photograph: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Imagesīiden has acknowledged his age is a factor. “By then, we will likely be in some form of economic crisis or recovery and the vice-president will be Joe Biden’s partner in charting a path forward for the county,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.īreaking with precedent, Biden has committed to picking a woman as his running mate.Ī volunteer hangs campaign signs ahead of an event in Maquoketa, Iowa, on 30 October 2019. The decision – typically the result of an extensive vetting process that takes into account biography and geography, personal chemistry and governing experience – has been further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has decimated the economy and killed more than 53,000 Americans. Though Biden is still in the early stages of the selection process – he insists he’s months away from making a final decision – his public dialogue has provided real-time insight into what past nominees have christened their “first presidential act”. ![]() “The first and most important quality is someone who, if I were to walk away immediately from the office for whatever reason, that they can be president and the public could look at that person and say: ‘She is capable of being president of the United States tomorrow,’” Biden said last week in an appearance on CBS’s The Late Late Show with James Corden. ![]()
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