Kamala Harris increasingly viewed as Joe Biden’s most likely vice presidential pick

With a lit­tle over six months until Elec­tion Day, spec­u­la­tion over who for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden will choose as his run­ning mate con­tin­ues to run ram­pant both inside and out­side the top tiers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

At the begin­ning of this month, Biden announced a com­mit­tee ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing him make a vice pres­i­den­tial pick, and he has recent­ly used his campaign’s pod­cast, “Here’s The Deal,” to inter­view poten­tial candidates.

While no deci­sion has been made yet – and will like­ly not be made for some months – report­ing from inside the Biden team seems to indi­cate that Kamala Har­ris is the lead­ing con­tender for the job. Inter­views of dozens of Biden allies, advi­sors and donors by Politi­co sug­gest that the junior U.S. Sen­a­tor from Cal­i­for­nia is streets ahead of oth­er can­di­dates, with some see­ing Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren of Mass­a­chu­setts as the only oth­er like­ly choice.

There is much to rec­om­mend Har­ris as a vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. As the daugh­ter of immi­grants from Jamaica and India, Har­ris’ name on the tick­et would allow the Biden cam­paign to stand in clear con­trast to the nativist white nation­al­ism that Don­ald Trump and Mike Pence represent.

Har­ris is (unlike Biden) a tal­ent­ed and dynam­ic cam­paign­er; her pri­ma­ry campaign’s open­ing ral­ly attract­ed more atten­dees than even Barack Obama’s 2007 announce­ment, and she has already been work­ing to pro­mote Biden and down­bal­lot Democ­rats across the country.

Per­haps most entic­ing­ly of all for Democ­rats who want to see their nom­i­nees take the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion to task, she is a high­ly tal­ent­ed debater.

Joe Biden found that out to his cost in the first round of pri­ma­ry debates when she slammed him for his record of oppos­ing deseg­re­ga­tion poli­cies (although all is now for­giv­en, accord­ing to friends of the Biden family).

In the gen­er­al elec­tion she would get to spar with the cur­rent Vice Pres­i­dent, Mike Pence. Talk­ing to Politi­co, South Car­oli­na Demo­c­rat and Har­ris ally Bakari Sell­ers open­ly rel­ished the prospect of a Har­ris vs. Pence tele­vised debate.

If the Democ­rats win in Novem­ber, Har­ris could be a very com­pe­tent Vice Pres­i­dent. She has expe­ri­ence in exec­u­tive roles – as San Fransisco’s Dis­trict Attor­ney and California’s Attor­ney Gen­er­al – and in the Senate.

She is also a pop­u­lar fig­ure across a broad swath of rank-and-file Democ­rats, and would be a pow­er­ful advo­cate for Pres­i­dent Biden’s agenda.

Har­ris has been work­ing to expand that appeal. She alien­at­ed some pro­gres­sives dur­ing her pres­i­den­tial run by adopt­ing half-haeart­ed pol­i­cy posi­tions (her health­care pro­pos­al was par­tic­u­lar­ly lack­ing in its log­ic), but has recent­ly used her posi­tion in the Sen­ate to work with pro­gres­sive cham­pi­ons includ­ing Bernie Sanders and Ayan­na Press­ley of Mass­a­chu­setts (a mem­ber of “the Squad”) to craft a series of bills to help those impact­ed by the COVID-19 crisis.

Har­ris’ real advan­tage over her com­peti­tors comes from her close rela­tion­ship with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic party’s elite ech­e­lon of pow­er-bro­kers and donors.

Joe Biden’s cam­paign (and indeed, his whole career) has always been tight­ly aligned with estab­lish­ment pol­i­tics. Mem­o­rably, dur­ing the pri­ma­ry, while his top rivals promised to rein in the excess­es of large cor­po­ra­tions, Biden open­ly declared that “no one’s stan­dard of liv­ing will change” under his presidency.

Har­ris (unlike Biden’s oth­er poten­tial run­ning mate, War­ren) is a dar­ling of many of these inter­ests. One Biden cam­paign big-mon­ey fundrais­er described her as “a stand­out in terms of… keep­ing donors warm.” Oth­er top donors have described Har­ris as “a team play­er” as far as the par­ty estab­lish­ment is concerned.

Har­ris has the best odds of being picked by Biden, but ulti­mate­ly the deci­sion to join the tick­et will be hers – not Joe Biden’s or any donor’s.

And she may not decide to take the job.

Kamala Har­ris is a woman who likes to con­trol her own des­tiny and is famous­ly hard to pres­sure into any role she does not want.

The best exam­ple of this is from 2014, when Pres­i­dent Oba­ma offered her the role of Attor­ney Gen­er­al. The role would have been a major boost for her career, and yet Har­ris chose to turn it down. She remained Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Cal­i­for­nia, and went on to win a seat in the U.S. Sen­ate in 2016. She used that posi­tion in the Sen­ate to launch her unsuc­cess­ful bid for the pres­i­den­cy in 2019.

Unlike Stacey Abrams, the oth­er promi­nent African-Amer­i­can in the run­ning for the vice pres­i­den­tial pick, Har­ris has not cam­paigned for the job, and reports of her tak­ing “house­clean­ing steps” for her future career do not indi­cate how she envi­sions that career unfold­ing; her options include the vice pres­i­den­cy, a pow­er­ful posi­tion in the Sen­ate, or anoth­er top job in the Biden cabinet.

Har­ris may well desire to set her own course and not be steered by oth­ers – even if they are offer­ing her one of the biggest plat­forms in Amer­i­can politics.

Har­ris is keep­ing her options open.

She has kept a core group of advi­sors from her cam­paign who have been instru­men­tal in sub­tly influ­enc­ing the con­ver­sa­tion around Joe Biden’s pick.

In one case, Har­ris’ team report­ed­ly man­aged to get the promi­nent civ­il rights activist Rev­erend Al Sharp­ton to back down from a deci­sion to pro­mote Abrams as the best choice to be Biden’s run­ning mate, and it is like­ly that even more behind-the-scenes machi­na­tions have gone unreported.

Whichev­er path Kamala Har­ris decides to take, the pub­lic is not like­ly to find out for months yet. Joe Biden has no rea­son to rush into a deci­sion on his run­ning mate, and is right to take a great deal of care and con­sid­er­a­tion in reach­ing it — it is, after all, a deci­sion that has a good chance of deter­min­ing who the first female pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States will be.