Biden’s vice-presidential search gains some steam
Joe Biden’s advisers have conducted several rounds of interviews with a select group of vice-presidential candidates and are beginning to gather private documents from some as they attempt to winnow a field that features the most diverse set of vice-presidential contenders in history.
The search committee has been in touch with roughly a dozen women, and some eight or nine are being vetted more intensively.
Among that group are two contenders who have recently grown in prominence, Rep. Val Demings of Florida and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta. One well-known candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, has lost her perch as a front-runner. And some lower-profile candidates, like Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, are advancing in the process.
Biden’s vice-presidential search has taken a bifurcated course so far, with one path unfolding in the open — and another in strict discretion.
Some who have advanced furthest in the process are well known, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But The Times confirmed several other women who have not publicly confirmed that they agreed to be vetted are under consideration.
The political currents of the last few weeks are leaving a mark on the deliberations. The wave of demonstrations has elevated a pair of black women long regarded as long-shot candidates: Demings and Bottoms.
Though Demings and Bottoms are far less known to the national electorate than other figures on Biden’s list, they have played crucial roles in a cascading civil rights crisis: Demings, a former police chief in Orlando, Florida, has become a major figure in the law-enforcement debate, while Bottoms’ handling of chaotic demonstrations in her city earned her national acclaim.