In the final days and hours before he announces his choice of running mate, Joe Biden is facing last-minute calls to make his vice presidential pick a black woman.
Several of the top contenders on Biden’s shortlist are black women, including the two most buzzed-about picks, California Sen. Kamala Harris and former national security adviser Susan Rice. But reports that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a white woman, flew via private jet to Delaware to meet with Biden last week stoked fears that the Democratic ticket, despite the party’s messaging on diversity, would consist of two white people.
An open letter signed by more than 100 black men released Monday argued that “failing to select a Black woman in 2020 means you will lose the election.”
The list includes some celebrities, including rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs and radio host Charlamagne Tha God, who Biden famously told that if he had trouble figuring out whether to vote for him or President Trump, “you ain’t black.” CNN commentators Van Jones and Bakari Sellers also signed the letter.
It is not the first time supporters have publicly made this call on Biden, who previously said on the campaign trail that he would want his running mate to be a woman or person of color before he committed to choosing a woman. Supporters of picking a black woman argue that qualified black women on Biden’s rumored shortlist can fill every need that Biden is looking for in a running mate.
Pressure has further built on Biden to choose a black woman or a woman from another racial minority group in the wake of mass Black Lives Matter protests across the country sparked in part by the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd in police custody.
When Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar removed herself from consideration as Biden’s running mate, she called on him to pick a woman of color. In April, 200 black women signed an open letter asking him to choose a black woman. Influential South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn has publicly said he favors Biden picking a black woman.
But the news of Whitmer meeting with Biden has energized the push, even as Biden’s pick is expected to be announced at any moment this week.
“He better pick a black woman. If he picks Gretchen, he’ll lose Michigan,” Virgie Rollins, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Black Caucus, told Politico.
Democratic strategist David Axelrod suggested on CNN Tuesday that Biden’s campaign may have intentionally leaked the news of Whitmer’s meeting with Biden as a trial balloon, in order to test the reaction to a white vice presidential nominee.
“He added somewhat to the pressure,” Axelrod said of Biden. “They didn’t leak any of the other meetings. None of those leaked. And she’s been as buttoned-down on this as anybody. I think that they wanted to test the waters and see what the reaction would be if the news came that he had chosen Gov. Whitmer.”
And prompt a reaction it did.
“Whatever the criteria is, there is an African American woman who meets it,” Van Jones said on CNN Monday evening, listing Rice, Harris, and California Rep. Karen Bass, among other black women on Biden’s rumored shortlist with ample government experience. “It’s not like there is some rock star from, you know, some other demographic that you can point to. And so if this is not the time to do it, I don’t know when the time to do it is.”
Another part of their argument rests on the idea that having a black woman on the ticket is necessary to energize black voters and get them to the polls in order to win the election, particularly in Midwestern electoral swing states such as Michigan. According to a New York Times analysis of 2016 and 2012 exit poll data, 11% of black 2012 Obama voters declined to cast a ballot in 2016. Out of all the 4.4 million Obama 2012 voters who declined to cast a ballot in 2016, more than a third, 36%, were black.
Jones also noted that Democrats are relying on essentially no defections from black women to secure a path to victory.
“We’re relying on the African American female vote in the Democratic Party to come out not 80%, not 90%, but 98%, almost unanimity, once again, to try and save this party,” he said, referencing the fact that 98% of black women voters chose Hillary Clinton in 2016. “And yet no African American woman for whatever reason has been given the opportunity to help to lead the party.”
Aside from Whitmer, rumored women on Biden’s shortlist who would be out of the running if Biden limits his selection to a black woman include Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is white; Thai-born Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who is also a veteran and double amputee; and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is Hispanic.
