Who could be Kamala Harris’s VP pick now Biden has dropped out the race?

All eyes have been on Vice President Kamala Harris ever since President Joe Biden’s poor performance during the first presidential debate in Atlanta. Recent surveys have shown that Harris polls better than Biden among key demographic groups like young people and people of color — and so it’s unsurprising that, when Biden officially announced he was dropping out the race on Sunday, he also endorsed Harris.

Harris now has the unenviable task of picking a running mate to go toe-to-toe with Trump’s newly-minted running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio.

A presidential nominee’s selection of a running mate signals what kind of campaign and administration they want. Biden’s selection of Harris back in 2019 signaled that he valued the Black voters who propelled him to the Democratic nomination for president and the suburban female voters who had joined the anti-Trump coalition. Trump’s selection of Vance shows he values someone who shares his ideology rather than someone who will grow the base.

As a Black and Indian woman, the reality is that Harris will likely need to pick a white male Democrat to assuage concerns from some blocs within the Democratic Party.

Here’s The Independent’s list of potential replacements who could fall out of a coconut tree and exist in the context of the campaign that came before them.

The Democratic Governor of North Carolina has three assets in his favor. For one, he’s known Harris since their days as attorneys general of North Carolina and California, respectively. The Independent spoke with Cooper earlier this year and he said that he always tells Harris how many times she has visited the Tar Heel state, a place Democrats want to win but have not figured out how to crack since Barack Obama did