Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden has shifted leftward on issues ranging from debt forgiveness to green manufacturing. That more progressive turn has come, in part, thanks to weeks of negotiations with allies of Bernie Sanders in an effort to unify the party around its 77-year-old moderate nominee. But it can also be attributed to the influence of Elizabeth Warren, whose strong alliance with Biden has made her a formidable contender for running mate.
Indeed, Warren is believed to be a leading candidate to fill out the Democratic ticket still, even as pressure has mounted on Biden to select a Black woman amid a national reckoning over racism. That reckoning put moderate Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar out of the running; as the George Floyd killing renewed attention on her record as a prosecutor, she withdrew from consideration and urged Biden to pick a woman of color. But Warren’s chances have seemed to endure, thanks to her unabashedly progressive agenda that has already influenced Biden’s platform. “What we ultimately are concerned with is who is going to deliver most faithfully on a Black public policy agenda,” Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the progressive Working Families Party, told the Boston Globe Sunday. “I don’t think there is any question that Elizabeth Warren has demonstrated her commitment to doing that.”
At first glance, the centrist Biden and the progressive Warren would seem unlikely allies. Moreover, his personal relationships with other top contenders like Kamala Harris and Susan Rice, with whom he worked in the Obama administration, are perhaps better documented. But some Biden insiders have come to see Warren as increasingly influential with the former vice president. “Joe has become very impressed with Elizabeth’s breadth of knowledge,” Biden ally Ed Rendell told the Globe.
But the pressure to put a woman of color on the ticket has only grown stronger in recent weeks. In April, more than 200 Black women signed an open letter to Biden urging him to pick a Black woman for the role. “Every one of these women has the skills, competence, and knowledge required of an effective governing partner who will help you lead America in this unprecedented moment in our history,” the letter read, mentioning Harris, Rice, Val Demings, and several other Black women said to be under strong consideration for running mate. “Further, it is a fact that the road to the White House is powered by Black women and Black women are the key to a Democratic victory in 2020.” Biden has said he’s looking for a running mate with whom he is “simpatico.” But with the running mate selection imminent, some in the party are pushing harder for him to broaden his considerations beyond who he might feel aligned with. “He has to recognize that even his set of relationships, I’m quite sure, are geared toward his world,” LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter, told the Washington Post. “In the moment that we’re in where every single system is on the brink of crumbling…he does not have the luxury of his white male political relationships to move him forward.”
“The women are prepared to serve,” Ruby Woolridge, an Arlington, Texas city council candidate, added to the Post. “They need to be given the opportunity.”
As my colleague Chris Smith reported last week, Harris is seen as the likely frontrunner—which would make her perhaps the most powerful running mate in history, and the party’s potential standard bearer in 2024. But the veepstakes doesn’t appear over quite yet. “This whole process, the vice-presidential process for 2020 for the Democratic nominee has been untraditional. Months ago he said, ‘I am going to pick a woman to be vice president,’” Karine Jean-Pierre, a Biden adviser, told the Post. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before, that is untraditional. He did that on his own, he said that before anybody else did. That he made that commitment tells you a lot about his thinking. He understands his ticket needs to representative of the country.”
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