Posted on May 27, 2020

What Happens if Joe Biden Picks a White Woman as VP?

Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, May 27, 2020

Wake Up, White Women

At the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC (Credit Image: Chris Roberts / American Renaissance)

Joe Biden has promised to choose a woman as his Vice President.

So the question has become: What race?

Democrats are worried that President Trump may be making inroads with both blacks and Hispanics. Even a tiny increase in the minority vote for the GOP could swing swing a state red, which makes it hard for Democrats to choose between a Hispanic and a black VP nominee. As I wrote last month:

Blacks always vote overwhelmingly Democrat, so why bother pandering to them? On the other hand, blacks vote at lower rates when they cannot vote for a fellow black — which can make a big difference in swing states with black cities, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. So should blacks get the important jobs? Or, since Hispanics are less loyal to Democrats, should they be tapped for leadership positions to bring them into the fold?

Of course, there is another major Democrat voting bloc: whites. Though liberals are not in the habit of appealing to America’s dispossessed majority, they are aware that a possible path to victory is by winning back the white Midwestern working-class, white women in the suburbs, and senior citizens — almost all of whom are white. Those three groups are more likely to vote blue if the Vice Presidential candidate is a white moderate. Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams might frighten them.

Hence, the rumors that several white women are being seriously considered: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The two Midwesterners are allegedly being considered most seriously, in the hope they can help deliver Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

These four women would shore up support with white voters; the question is: How many black and Hispanic votes would they cost the Democrats? If they increase the Democrat vote in the white and middle-class upper peninsula of Michigan, how much will they decrease it in the black and Hispanic ghettos of Milwaukee?


Senators Klobuchar and Warren both ran for the Democrat nomination this year, and despite pandering as much as any Democrat, neither won much non-white support. The Minneapolis Star Tribune observed of Sen. Klobuchar that, “[Her] past as a prosecutor has hindered more than helped her cause among black voters, who often see the criminal justice system stacked against them.” Meanwhile, the New York Times ran the amusing headline, “Elizabeth Warren Has Won Black Activists. She’s Losing the Black Vote.” This week, Politico ran a story called, “Black activists warn Biden: Don’t pick Klobuchar as VP.”

The two governors, meanwhile, have almost no national name recognition. Non-whites are likely to see a choice of either as “yet another” case of smart minorities getting passed over in favor of under-qualified whites — a popular myth among blacks and Hispanics. Moreover, while the Left does not care for whites in general, it has a special kind of contempt for white women, as Robert Hampton has twice documented. Leftist outlets even have two different slurs for white women (“Becky” and “Karen”), and are always eager to attack them, even liberal ones.

After years of disparaging whites, especially white women, and demands for more “visibility” for non-whites, minorities will not be happy to see an all-white Democrat ticket.

This “tug-of-war” of factors may be why Mr. Biden is taking so long to decide. To avoid this problem in the future, Democrats may have to start trying to groom mixed-race candidates for high office. It might be the only way of keeping their fragile racial coalition together.