Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams said she would be the best running mate for Joe Biden, making her case as contributing the most to the former vice president’s electability.
“We have to win the election. And I would point out that I ran the most successful campaign to engage the communities we need to build the broadest coalition necessary in 2020, because what we are going to see on the ground is that this is going to be a campaign unlike anything that’s been run before,” Abrams told The Atlantic in an interview published Friday.
Abrams electrified the Democratic base with her gubernatorial run in Georgia in 2018 in which she narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams, who has openly been campaigning to be Biden’s No. 2, pointed to the energy she was able to galvanize as evidence that she would expand Biden’s appeal.
“If you look at what we were able to accomplish in Georgia, the growth of the numbers and the composition of the voters, I would put my capacity to win an election as the VP running mate alongside anyone’s,” she said.
Abrams’s name has frequently been touted as a possible vice presidential nominee for Biden, who pledged last month to pick a woman as his running mate. The Georgia Democrat has been openly campaigning for the job, speaking about the job during a number of media appearances and saying she would be an “excellent” addition to Biden’s ticket.
Other contenders who have been floated include former presidential candidates Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).
Biden has been under pressure from some of his supporters to pick a black woman to recognize the key role African American voters have played in buoying his White House bid.
“I really believe that we’ve reached a point in this country where African American women need to be rewarded for the loyalty that they’ve given to this party,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said last month.