The prospect of the first black woman to appear on a presidential ticket looks more likely than ever before, with Joe Biden seriously considering Kamala Harris, Val Demings and Keisha Lance Bottoms to be his running mate.
But there's also a serious white contender in the mix who is showing a unique capacity to energize African Americans: Elizabeth Warren.
While the continued protests sparked by the death of George Floyd have amplified the pressure on Biden to choose a black woman as his No. 2, several black leaders are voicing a notable degree of support for Warren, strengthening her case as a vice presidential pick as other white candidates have lost traction in the current climate.
"There needs to be a certain energy brought to the campaign and she has a different kind of energy," said Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin's first African American lieutenant governor. "Areas where Biden would have difficulty communicating, I think that's a gap that she could close. ... I look at groups of black voters that coalesced around her ... I think that (she) is the strongest case for a consensus candidate."
Warren has received heaps of praise as she's made a series of virtual appearances with black leaders over the past few weeks. In a recent Zoom event hosted by the Rainbow Push coalition at which Warren was the only white guest, Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia described her as a "staunch ally of black people."
"If she were the vice presidential selectee, I would be very happy with that," Johnson said.
If Biden's aim is to mobilize both black and progressive voters, Warren may hold the strongest hand statistically. A Morning Consult poll showed Warren driving more black votes to Biden than Harris or Stacey Abrams, the unsuccessful Georgia gubernatorial candidate who has said she hasn't been contacted by the Biden team about the vetting process. A separate April survey showed Warren demonstrating the most consistent support among white and black voters in the battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Democrats tracking the process still largely agree that Harris remains the most widely acceptable choice, given her race, political resume and experience running through the gauntlet of a national campaign. Amy Klobuchar's chances have severely diminished since her own record as a county prosecutor has attracted more scrutiny. And Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been hurt by a snafu over her husband attempting to use her position to get his boat in the water ahead of the Memorial Day holiday and the awarding of a coronavirus tracing contract to a Democratic political firm.
The genuine affinity for Warren within significant portions of the black community could signal to Biden that she is the one white woman who wouldn't incur substantial backlash.
"Warren is certainly the most acceptable white candidate that could be chosen," said Steve Phillips, founder of Democracy in Color who just recorded a podcast with Warren on reparations and "white allyship."
"I think her brand of large-scale change does also speak to the moment in terms of people demanding significant reforms within the country," he added.
Earlier this year when Phillips was tapped to help organize a petition requesting that Biden choose a woman of color as his running mate, he recalled that a number of activists of color declined because they didn't want to eliminate Warren as an option.
"Warren is known and she is liked broadly," he said. Phillips noted that Warren received a higher percentage of the black vote in her first Senate run in Massachusetts than Harris did in her first Senate election in California.
At 70 years old, Warren's age remains a potential drawback for a Democratic Party in need of a new generation of leadership. Ideologically, the Massachusetts senator may sit too far to the left for Biden, who has repeatedly said he wants to be "simpatico" with his running mate. And then there's the issue of plucking her out of the closely divided U.S. Senate and leaving a Republican governor to fill her replacement until a special election is held _ a time frame that allies assure could be shortened if she were to resign her seat.
Warren's background as a Harvard law professor and consumer advocate largely shields her from many of the tough-on-crime decisions made by policymakers in recent decades that now look excessive and counterproductive. But the reforms she pushed as a presidential candidate _ including pledges to abolish the death penalty, end cash bail and repeal large portions of the 1994 crime legislation _ demonstrated to activists a comprehensive commitment to rooting out structural racism. Her recent Senate amendment to strip the names of Confederate generals from military bases was lauded as symbolically powerful and politically astute.
The sustained outcry over systemic police brutality has simultaneously elevated the importance of black leadership and renewed scrutiny on the criminal justice records of Biden's prospective vice presidential picks. Some progressives have argued the backgrounds of Harris, a former prosecutor, and Demings, a former police chief, should essentially disqualify them from consideration at a moment when most Americans are clamoring for sweeping policing reforms.
Biden's sponsorship of the 1994 crime bill, which President Donald Trump has already attempted to raise as a campaign issue, makes the selection of a reform-minded running mate even more salient, they argue.
"I think it would be an incredibly poor strategic decision to add a former sheriff, a former prosecutor to a ticket that already has a weakness against Trump in the area of criminal justice, which is obviously right now at the top of not just black communities' minds, but the entire country's minds," said Jennifer Epps-Addison, president of the Center for Popular Democracy who is also African American. "It really is disrespectful and it's tone deaf in this era in this moment to be suggesting prosecutors and police officers as the potential VP pick."
Epps-Addison said if Harris were to embrace more progressive planks of reform, she could alleviate concerns about a record that critics complain leaned on jail sentences and allowed prosecutors to evade consequences for misconduct.
"Unfortunately what we've seen from her ... does not give us much confidence," Epps-Addison said of Harris.
As Demings' vice presidential cache has increased in recent weeks, progressives have scurried to raise red flags about her 27-year career as part of the Orlando Police Department, where she served as chief her final four years.
Old news reports about rampant misconduct and excessive force within the Orlando department have been circulating more frequently as local activists attempt to reset the national narrative around the largely unknown congresswoman.
The rumblings around Demings and Harris help explain why Warren remains a viable contender, even if she's not the favorite.
"I think Elizabeth Warren is the only non-black woman who could definitely appeal to some black voters as she prioritized the party's base on the campaign trail and would likely do so in office," said Tiffany Cross, the author of "Say it Louder! Black Voters, White Narratives and Saving Our Democracy."
"The progressive wing of the party includes many black voters," Cross added. "It's not a question of 'how black are you?' The question is how black are your policies?"
