Who will Joe Biden’s running mate be?

Now that the race for the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion is defin­i­tive­ly over, peo­ple are increas­ing­ly talk­ing about the most impor­tant deci­sion that Joe Biden has to make between now and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in August. And that is who Biden will pick as his run­ning mate.

Spec­u­la­tion on this top­ic began gath­er­ing steam as far back as the final debate between Biden and Bernie Sanders when Biden promised to pick a woman to be his run­ning mate. In recent days, the con­ver­sa­tion has gained momen­tum as Biden (him­self a for­mer vice pres­i­dent) has used his campaign’s recen­t­­ly-launched pod­cast to dis­cuss var­i­ous poten­tial can­di­dates and announced that a selec­tion team will be formed at the begin­ning of next month.

Biden has many fac­tors to take into con­sid­er­a­tion for his pick.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee has made it clear that he is seek­ing a can­di­date who would be ready to take up the reins of the pres­i­den­cy at a moment’s notice (a nod to con­cerns about his own advanced age).

Luck­i­ly for him, the ranks of his par­ty are flush with intel­li­gent and tal­ent­ed female lead­ers – a fact made clear when female Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers chose to wear white to the 2020 State of the Union, cre­at­ing a star­tling visu­al effect.

The role of Vice Pres­i­dent is a unique one in Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment, as the only offi­cial who is part of both the exec­u­tive branch and the leg­isla­tive branch, as Pres­i­dent of the U.S. Sen­ate. This means that, as well as being ready to take over the Oval Office, Biden’s run­ning mate will need to be able to han­dle the leg­isla­tive side of gov­ern­ment. One of Biden’s key advan­tages as a vice pres­i­dent for Barack Oba­ma in 2008 was that he had decades of expe­ri­ence as a sen­a­tor from Delaware.

Biden will not only need a capa­ble part­ner, but one who can bring him cred­i­bil­i­ty and good vibes in the bat­tle to defeat Don­ald Trump.

This abil­i­ty is hard­er to mea­sure than tal­ent or expe­ri­ence, and could mate­ri­al­ize in many forms. A can­di­date with a strong record in a state Biden needs to win (for exam­ple, in the Mid­west) could be key in tip­ping the elec­toral college.

A pop­u­lar pro­gres­sive could help Biden unite his own par­ty and con­vince left-lean­ing vot­ers to go to the polls. As the 2016 elec­tion showed, turn­ing out the Demo­c­ra­t­ic base across the board will be essen­tial if Biden is to win.

Anoth­er essen­tial fea­ture of a vice pres­i­dent is even hard­er to mea­sure or pre­dict; will Biden and his run­ning mate get along? As Vice Pres­i­dent for eight years, Biden had a famous­ly close friend­ship with his boss, Barack Oba­ma, and he has made it clear that he wants his run­ning mate to be “sim­pati­co” with him. With all these cri­te­ria in mind, below is a list of the most like­ly run­ning mates for Joe Biden.

Kamala Harris

The junior U.S. Sen­a­tor from Cal­i­for­nia is con­sid­ered one of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic party’s bright­est ris­ing stars, and many of Biden’s clos­est allies have report­ed­ly been pro­mot­ing her. She is an extreme­ly expe­ri­enced politi­cian, hav­ing worked her way up from San Fran­cis­co Dis­trict Attor­ney to Attor­ney Gen­er­al of her state, and ulti­mate­ly to the U.S. Sen­ate. Even bet­ter, she is a woman of col­or in an elec­tion where the Democ­rats des­per­ate­ly need to turn out minor­i­ty voters.

Although her own bid for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion ulti­mate­ly fell flat, the ear­ly stages of the com­pe­ti­tion dis­played her clear tal­ents for cam­paign ral­lies, rhetoric and debat­ing skills. All these will help Biden in the gen­er­al elec­tion, and her record of blast­ing Trump’s appointees from her spot on sev­er­al key Sen­ate com­mit­tees will like­ly enthuse the most anti-Trump parts of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic base.

Although she and Biden clashed dur­ing the pri­ma­ry cam­paign, it appears that Biden has no hard feel­ings towards her. At the end of last year, he said that the fifty-five year old Sen­a­tor had the poten­tial to go on to be a vice pres­i­dent, attor­ney gen­er­al, Supreme Court jus­tice, or even pres­i­dent her­self one day.

How­ev­er, Har­ris does have some weak­ness­es. Her record as a “tough on crime” pros­e­cu­tor in the Bay Area might mit­i­gate lib­er­al enthu­si­asm for her, and the Trump cam­paign is like­ly to use it against her – Trump has already begun to disin­gen­u­ous­ly present him­self as a crim­i­nal jus­tice reform cham­pi­on.

There is also a like­li­hood that Har­ris’ pres­ence on the tick­et will moti­vate racists to turn out against the chance of anoth­er per­son of col­or in the White House; repeat­ed stud­ies have shown that racism was a key fac­tor in Trump’s 2016 victory.

Elizabeth Warren

If Biden wants a can­di­date who can step up to the plate on day one, there is no bet­ter can­di­date than the U.S. Sen­a­tor from Massachusetts.

In her own bid for the nom­i­na­tion, War­ren pre­sent­ed her­self as a pol­i­­cy-focused ideas machine, with the slo­gan “I have a plan for that!”

War­ren not only has plans, but has a record of get­ting them enact­ed against the odds – most notably, from out­side of gov­ern­ment she lob­bied for the cre­ation of the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau, promis­ing not to give up until there was “blood and teeth left on the floor.”

War­ren would also be the best can­di­date to mol­li­fy the party’s dis­sat­is­fied left. Besides Bernie Sanders, she is eas­i­ly the most pro­gres­sive mem­ber of the Sen­ate, and been viewed as a lib­er­al hero for over a decade. Her pres­ence on the tick­et would reas­sure pro­gres­sives about Biden’s inten­tions for his presidency.

An effec­tive cam­paign­er, she may also be able to woo back the cru­cial “Oba­­ma-Trump” vot­ers with her own brand of eco­nom­ic populism.

How­ev­er, if Biden wants a can­di­date who is “sim­pati­co” with his own per­son­al­i­ty, there are few can­di­dates worse than Warren.

The two have dis­liked each oth­er since the 1990s, when War­ren lob­bied the Sen­ate for fair­er bank­rupt­cy laws while Biden defend­ed the cred­it card com­pa­nies based in his home state. The enmi­ty – played out over com­mit­tee hear­ings and in inter­views – was clear­ly very per­son­al, and nev­er real­ly sub­sided. War­ren refused to endorse Biden until his nom­i­na­tion became utter­ly inevitable; even Bernie Sanders was quick­er to endorse the for­mer vice pres­i­dent than Warren!

There are also demo­graph­ic ques­tions. Biden is sev­en­­ty-sev­en years old and War­ren is sev­en. Nom­i­nat­ing two white sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­ans to lead a par­ty that relies on minori­ties and young vot­ers might be a step too far, even for a nom­i­nee like Biden, who some­times appears to scorn those very groups.

Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams rock­et­ed to nation­al atten­tion in 2018 with her run for gov­er­nor in the state of Geor­gia. She came with­in a hair’s breadth of win­ning, and ulti­mate­ly refused to con­cede the elec­tion, point­ing to the obvi­ous vot­er repres­sion con­duct­ed by her Repub­li­can oppo­nent Bri­an Kemp – who hap­pened to be the state offi­cial respon­si­ble for run­ning elections.

Abrams has many strengths as a run­ning mate. She is a rel­a­tive­ly young woman of col­or, from a poten­tial swing state where she has a strong elec­toral record.

She is also one of the most pop­u­lar Democ­rats in the coun­try, and well-liked by pro­gres­sives for her efforts against vot­er suppression.

Abrams has no nation­al polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence, but with ten years in Georgia’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives – six of which she served as minor­i­ty leader – she is an expe­ri­enced leg­is­la­tor and polit­i­cal nego­tia­tor, which will be a cru­cial part of any future vice president’s role.

Biden’s team, rec­og­niz­ing her strengths, tried to bring Abrams onto their cam­paign as a run­ning mate more than a year ago. How­ev­er, Abrams shot the idea down, say­ing “you don’t run for sec­ond place,” fuel­ing spec­u­la­tion that she might run for the pres­i­den­cy her­self. Although she now says that she would hap­pi­ly join a tick­et with Biden, this ear­ly snub may hurt her chances, if Biden prizes loy­al­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty in his poten­tial vice president.

Gretchen Whitmer

The Gov­er­nor of Michi­gan has recent­ly been in the nation­al spot­light thanks to the COVID-19 cri­sis and Don­ald Trump’s attacks on her as “that woman from Michi­gan.” The feud between the two recent­ly esca­lat­ed, as Trump tweet­ed his sup­port for right-wing anti-lock­­­down pro­test­ers at the state capi­tol in Lans­ing. How­ev­er, even before she became so well known, Biden’s team was siz­ing her up as a poten­tial run­ning mate.

Whit­mer became gov­er­nor in 2018. Her vic­to­ry was par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive, as she beat an incum­bent Repub­li­can in one of the three states that ulti­mate­ly hand­ed Don­ald Trump his 2016 vic­to­ry in the elec­toral college.

She was cho­sen to deliv­er the Demo­c­ra­t­ic response to the State of the Union this year, and was wide­ly praised for her performance.

Pick­ing Whit­mer would like­ly be a sign that the Biden team is lean­ing into the phe­nom­e­non that drove the so-called “Blue Wave” of Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ries in the 2018 midterm elections.

In 2018, Democ­rats made huge gains in sub­ur­ban, mid­dle class con­stituen­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly among edu­cat­ed white women – tra­di­tion­al­ly Repub­li­can voters.

Whit­mer, one of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this trend, is ide­al­ly placed to exploit this. Raised in a polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed fam­i­ly, she has spent almost all of her career in elect­ed office. She exudes con­fi­dence, com­pe­tence and charm, but has also shown a more vul­ner­a­ble side; In 2013, while debat­ing abor­tion rights in the Michi­gan State Sen­ate, she described her expe­ri­ence as the vic­tim of sex­u­al assault.

This, along with her social­ly lib­er­al stances, is like­ly to appeal to the sub­ur­ban white women, many of whom vot­ed for Trump in 2016 but have since been turned off by his dis­gust­ing misog­y­ny. These vot­ers will doubt­less play a key role in any elec­tion strat­e­gy the Biden team develops.

Amy Klobuchar

The U.S Sen­a­tor from Min­neso­ta has a lot going for her as a run­ning mate for Biden. She has nev­er lost an elec­tion in her Mid­west­ern home state, includ­ing win­ning over nor­mal­ly Repub­­li­­can-lean­ing areas.

She has a per­son­al sto­ry that will res­onate with many strug­gling, work­ing-class Mid­west­ern­ers, and a cheer­ful, folksy man­ner that appeals to many vot­ers when applied to a one-on-one set­ting. Klobuchar is also much clos­er to Biden ide­o­log­i­cal­ly than many of the oth­er poten­tial vice pres­i­den­tial picks.

How­ev­er, Klobuchar seems an unlike­ly pick for a num­ber of reasons.

While many poten­tial picks have already pro­fessed enthu­si­asm about becom­ing Biden’s run­ning mate, Klobuchar’s cagey reply to a ques­tion on the sub­ject was, “I’m just not going to engage in hypo­thet­i­cals.” She also made ene­mies in Biden’s team when she pub­licly spurned a pri­vate approach by the for­mer Vice President’s staffers before the Iowa Cau­cus. The sub­se­quent results from Iowa were one of the most embar­rass­ing blows of Joe Biden’s pres­i­den­tial campaign.

Klobuchar also has a rep­u­ta­tion as a dif­fi­cult per­son to work with (to say the least).

While Joe Biden spent his years in the vice pres­i­den­cy gar­ner­ing a rep­u­ta­tion as a fun, laid-back char­ac­ter, Klobuchar has a well-earned rep­u­ta­tion as a fear­some boss. Employ­ees in her Sen­ate office have report­ed “anx­i­ety that per­me­ates the office,” with the Sen­a­tor liable to explode in anger and throw objects at unlucky interns. Biden may nev­er see that wrath him­self, but giv­en Biden’s desire to appear as a return to san­i­ty, it seems improb­a­ble that he would invite some­body with Klobuchar’s rep­u­ta­tion into a White House so recent­ly cleared of its tantrum-throw­ing cur­rent occupant.

Tammy Baldwin

Sen­a­tor Tam­my Bald­win of Wis­con­sin has not spent much time in the lime­light com­pared to oth­er poten­tial picks, but her pro­file has a lot of poten­tial. Bald­win has decades of elec­toral expe­ri­ence in one of the country’s most crit­i­cal 2020 states under her belt, with six years in the State Assem­bly, four­teen years as a U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and sev­en years as a U.S. Sen­a­tor. In her 2018 land­slide re-elec­­tion, Bald­win retook no few­er than 17 Oba­­ma-Trump coun­ties.

Bald­win is also a bound­­ary-break­ing politi­cian: she was the first female U.S. Sen­a­tor from Wis­con­sin, the first open­ly gay woman elect­ed to the U.S. Con­gress, and the first open­ly gay woman elect­ed to the U.S. Senate.

Fur­ther­more, her con­sis­tent pro­gres­sive stances (par­tic­u­lar­ly on health­care) have earned her praise from the Left, both inside and out­side of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty – the social­ist mag­a­zine Jacobin recent­ly sug­gest­ed that Bernie Sanders should pick her as his run­ning mate if he won the nomination.

Baldwin’s nom­i­na­tion has some risks asso­ci­at­ed – most notably that, if she became vice pres­i­dent, the Repub­li­cans would have a good chance of win­ning her seat in the Sen­ate with a spe­cial elec­tion, poten­tial­ly ruin­ing a Biden Administration’s chances of pass­ing leg­is­la­tion. There is also a chance that Trump would use the nom­i­na­tion of the first ever open­ly LGBT per­son to pour rock­et fuel on the sim­mer­ing big­otry that under­lies his elec­toral base. That being said, Trump doesn’t need help to encour­age his most bar­barous fans, and Baldwin’s nom­i­na­tion could actu­al­ly encour­age social­ly lib­er­al vot­ers to get to the polls.

Michelle Obama

A large num­ber of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty insid­ers think that the best way to win in 2020 is the way they won in 2008 and 2012, with an Oba­­ma-Biden tick­et… even if it is in fact a Biden-Oba­­ma tick­et. Rev. On the sur­face, there is some log­ic to their argu­ment. The for­mer First Lady of the Unit­ed States is – accord­ing to some sur­veys – the world’s “most admired woman,” and has only grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty since the end of her husband’s pres­i­den­cy in 2017. Biden him­self has said that if he had the option, he would choose Mrs. Oba­ma “in a heart­beat.”

Michelle Oba­ma, like Joe Biden, spent eight years in the White House, and while Biden claims he had the ear of the Pres­i­dent for that whole time, Michelle was lit­er­al­ly the first and last per­son the Pres­i­dent saw every day.

How­ev­er, bar­ring a mir­a­cle, Vice Pres­i­dent Michelle Oba­ma is not going to hap­pen. Mrs. Oba­ma has nev­er held elect­ed office, and has nev­er dis­played any inter­est in doing so. Indeed, a great deal of her cur­rent pop­u­lar­i­ty can be attrib­uted to the fact that her posi­tion puts her above and beyond politics.

She has also made abun­dant­ly clear, through inter­views, close friends, and even a chap­ter in her 2017 mem­oir, ‘Becom­ing,’ that she will not take the job: “I’ll say it here direct­ly: I have no inten­tion of run­ning for office, ever.”

Biden (whose friend­ship Mrs. Obama’s mem­oir describes in glow­ing terms) cer­tain­ly has a good per­son­al con­nec­tion with the for­mer First Lady, but that rela­tion­ship would prob­a­bly be harmed by the sim­ple act of ask­ing her to step back into pol­i­tics. Biden knows this; he recent­ly said in an inter­view, “I don’t think she has any desire to live near the White House again.”