Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s search for a vice president has a clear front-runner, experts say.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is leading the pack and is the most likely vice presidential pick for Biden.
Reports indicate that there has been a flurry of activity on Harris’ Wikipedia page in recent days, with over 200 edits made by unknown parties — a pattern previously seen ahead of vice presidential announcements by the late Sen. John McCain (who picked former Gov. Sarah Palin) in 2008, Sen. Mitt Romney in 2012 (he selected former House Speaker Paul Ryan), and President Donald Trump in 2016.
Days before those VP selections were made public, hundreds of edits to their soon-to-be running mates’ Wikipedia pages were made in preparation.
Could the nod for Harris be upcoming? The idea has recently been floated by mainstream outlets The Boston Globe.
After all, Harris checks off all the boxes Democrats are pushing. She’s a woman. She’s a well-connected Democratic Party insider. And she’s a person of color.
Biden launched a committee last week to begin vetting possible candidates for the vice presidency, a process he has said will last a good while. He has already committed to picking a woman.
But party leaders say he needs to go further and pick a black woman, leaving Harris one of the obvious picks. These party leaders have reportedly warned that Biden’s success — and that of the Democratic Party as a whole — depends on African-Americans turning out to vote in November.
House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement in South Carolina was widely credited with helping widen Biden’s winning margin and start his avalanche of March primary victories, said “clearly” he would prefer a black woman.
But he insisted he’s not pushing Biden in that direction.
Biden has been unusually vocal about the people he would consider as running mates. He’s referenced two black women, Harris and Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia.
But Biden is also thought to be considering several non-black women, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — who falsely claimed to be Cherokee for decades before walking back the claim and apologizing last year. Also on the list are Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Not everyone is convinced. Biden’s rival, President Donald Trump, has his own preference on who he should face.
Trump said his November opponent owes the spot to Warren, theorizing that Sen. Bernie Sanders “would have won every single state on Super Tuesday” if Warren had dropped out of the primary race earlier.
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The Associated Press contributed to this article