She’s the white choice at the wrong time.
Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has found herself in an increasingly awkward position as the Biden campaign vets more African Americans as possible presidential running mates.
In recent weeks, white candidates have dropped out of consideration or fallen out of favor, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and former top contender Sen. Amy Klobuchar dramatically withdrew from the process last week and urged Joe Biden to choose a woman of color.
While the white women have faded, a growing number of black female candidates have emerged as serious veepstakes players.
“All the African American candidates are first-tier and Warren,” a Senate insider familiar with the process told The Post.
“They are going to keep her name going until the last possible moment because they don’t want Twitter to have a meltdown for no reason,” said the source, nothing he believed there was a “95% chance” Joe Biden would pick a black woman.
“At this point they are too on the record about the women of color they are vetting,” said the source. “If you hold them all up for the 70-year-old white lady from Massachusetts, you better have a really good reason, and you don’t.”
Among those considered top options: Florida Rep. Val Demings, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, California Rep. Karen Bass, and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Rice’s stock appears to have risen sharply within Biden’s team in recent weeks, the source continued.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) remains in strong contention, but her chances appear hampered by what’s been described as a frosty relationship with Biden. Many say the former vice president is still smarting from her attacks on him during the Democratic debates, which he took personally because of Harris’ past friendship with his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
Harris served as the attorney general in California when Beau Biden held the same position in Delaware. They overlapped in the roles between 2010 and 2015.
Stacey Abrams is all but out of consideration. Two other women of color, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, are considered second-tier options, the source added.
Though she once famously claimed to have Native American ancestry, Warren remains the only white women among the top contenders.
Protests against police killings have accelerated the emergence of black candidates.
Danielle Moodie, a political consultant and former vice president at SKDKnickerbocker, said the rise of qualified black women was inevitable, given the changes in the Democratic party’s demographics.
“When we look at who the backbone of the Democratic party is, it’s black women who consistently show up. They are the most steadfast voting bloc,” Moodie told The Post.
She said picking a Midwestern white moderate like Klobuchar to appeal to suburban soccer moms was a doomed effort.
“They are gone: 53 percent of white women voted for Trump and it is not an anomaly,” she said. “They vote with their white husbands, which is Republicans.”
TJ Ducklo, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign, called The Post’s reporting “flat-out wrong” — though he declined to specify what exactly was incorrect.