Outspoken Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, in the middle of the latest police shooting death controversy, should be on Joe Biden’s ever-changing vice presidential list for working hard to keep peace in the city while addressing the national battle over race, according to key analysts charting the ups and downs of the list.
The experts who write the Sabato Crystal Ball newsletter for the University of Virginia also said that with Bottoms and other in-office Democrats staking out positions on the Black Lives Matter protests and police shootings, former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams is dropping fast.
In the latest list out Thursday from Kyle Kondik, J. Miles Coleman, and Larry J. Sabato, Abrams fell to the bottom of the list of 11.
The list still leads with California Sen. Kamala Harris. Florida Rep. Val Demings is second.
Biden has pledged to pick a woman as his running mate, and there has been pressure to pick an African American since the protests and riots that followed George Floyd’s death while he was in Minneapolis police custody. Harris, Demings, and Bottoms are women of color.
He is also being urged to pick a Hispanic person since they are unenthusiastic about his candidacy. The UVA group pushed up the chances he would pick New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
“She is the only Hispanic candidate on our list, and one of Biden’s weaknesses in polling so far appears to be with Hispanics. Lujan Grisham also has both federal and state-level experience, although to the bulk of the country, she’s an unknown,” they said.
Here is their list:
- California Sen. Kamala Harris
- Florida Rep. Val Demings
- Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth
- New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
- Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
- Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice
- Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin
- Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
- Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo
- Georgia’s Stacey Abrams
