With President Biden’s announcement that he will not run for re-election in November, all eyes have turned to his replacement. Many top Democrats, including Biden, have endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, leading to increased scrutiny over who she might pick as a running mate.
The Democrat party will be looking for a vice-president (VP) candidate who can pull in young people and moderates, appeal to suburbanites and win over voters in key battleground states. With a woman running for president, the party will also need a VP candidate who can appeal to men, since in 2020 men favoured Trump by a narrow margin.
Democrats will want to balance the ticket in terms of Harris’ bold stances on reproductive rights and gun control, which the right is already casting as “extreme”. Most importantly, if Harris runs for president, she’ll need a running mate that can help calm the general unrest that has simmered across the nation over the past four years.
