Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has ramped up her efforts to become former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate, calling Democratic leadership begging them to tell Biden to put her on the ticket, according to Politico.
Joe Biden said last week that he plans on ramping up his search for a running mate this week and will be holding final interviews with a number of candidates, likely to include Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Kamala Harris (D-CA), who will appear with Biden on Tuesday in a livestream interview. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer was said to be in the running, though a recent spate of bad press, largely the result of her mis-handling of the coronavirus pandemic, has likely jeopardized her bid.
Biden has already pledged to run with a woman — a pledge he made back in a March debate against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the hopes that it would improve his status among women, who were still clinging to Warren. The decision came well before the coronavirus hit its crescendo, leaving some of the panemdic’s more obvious Democratic heroes, like New York governor Andrew Cuomo, out of the running.
Politico reports that Democrat leaders are pressuring Biden to select a woman of color, in part as a way of “thanking” minority voters who pushed Biden over the top in the South Carolina primary and on Super Tuesday, allowing him to pull well ahead of Sanders, and handing him a path to the nomination that seemed nearly out of reach in December.
“The most vocal pressure on Biden is to nominate a black woman. Biden would not be the presumptive nominee if not for his victory in South Carolina, and black voters — particularly black women — are critical to the party’s prospects in the general election,” the outlet said Tuesday.
Stacey Abrams, who still claims to have won the race for Georgia’s governor’s mansion against current Georgia governor, Republican Brian Kemp, has been the most aggressive of Biden’s potential running mates, calling around to Democratic leadership and pressuring key individuals to put in a good word for her with Biden’s VP selection team.
“In multiple media appearances and interviews in the last month, Abrams has said she’s interested in the role. She has described herself as an ‘excellent’ pick for Biden and said on ‘The View’ earlier in April that she would have ‘concerns’ if Biden didn’t pick a woman of color as a running mate,” the Washington Examiner says. “Abrams has cited her experience in the private sector as well as her ‘independent study’ of international affairs as qualifications for the role.”
Abrams lacks a measure of political experience. Her closest brushes with any “international affairs” came as the minority leader of Georgia’s legislature, and she has never served on a federal level. That hasn’t stopped her from pressing the issue, often explaining away her lack of qualifications.
“As a young black woman growing up in Mississippi, I learned that if you don’t raise your hand, people won’t see you, and they won’t give you attention,” Abrams said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “But it’s not about attention for being the running mate. It is about making sure that my qualifications aren’t in question because they’re not just speaking to me. They’re speaking to young black women, young women of color, young people of color, who wonder if they, too, can be seen.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.