Biden Names 4 People to Oversee Search for Running Mate

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a primary night election rally in Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 29, 2020. Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Former Vice President Joe Biden has chosen four people to help him select a running mate, his campaign said on April 30.

Biden, 77, is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and Cynthia Hogan, Biden’s former counsel, will lead the selection process.

“These four co-chairs reflect the strength and diversity of our party, and will provide tremendous insight and expertise to what will be a rigorous selection and vetting process,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

Biden has said he wants a woman younger than him as a running mate but hasn’t committed to any other requirements, leaving the door open to a wide range of possibilities.

Former rivals Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have been mentioned as in the running, along with failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Biden said last week he would pick former First Lady Michelle Obama as his running mate “in a heartbeat.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) speaks during a campaign rally at the Altria Theatre in Richmond, Va., on Feb. 29, 2020. Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the state during a speech in Lansing, Mich., on April 13, 2020. Michigan Office of the Governor via AP, Pool

Garcetti, Rochester, Dodd, and Hogan will consult with Democratic Party leaders, Biden’s campaign said.

Teams involved in vetting potential candidates for Biden’s running mate will be in the loop as well. Former White House counsel Bob Bauer, former Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco, and Dana Remus, the Biden campaign’s general counsel, will lead that network.

Biden told a virtual fundraiser earlier in April that he’d put together a committee to look for running-mate candidates. The committee would be “looking at someone to be a partner in the progress and who is simpatico, who is someone who, in the case of the vice president, ready to be president at a moment’s notice,” he said.

Sexual assault allegations against Biden from Tara Reade, who worked for him while he was a U.S. senator in 1992 and 1993, complicate taking the position if offered.

While Biden hasn’t been asked directly about the allegations—the campaign hasn’t responded to multiple requests from The Epoch Times for comment—some of his potential running mates have.

Klobuchar told NPR that “all women in these cases have the right to be heard and have their claims thoroughly reviewed.”

She directed people to a story from The New York Times about the matter, which was revised at the behest of Biden’s campaign, before praising Biden as “a leader on domestic abuse” and “a champion of abuses of power against women.”

The New York Times article originally stated, “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.”

Abrams in a statement to The Huffington Post also cited The New York Times article before adding, “Nothing in the Times review or any other later reports suggests anything other than what I already know about Joe Biden: That he will make women proud as the next President of the United States.”