Who’s on Joe Biden’s running mate short list? DCCC suggests 12

DCCC is surveying on 12 possible running mates for Joe Biden.

Last week Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden‘s campaign reportedly trimmed its list of potential running mates to a short list, which was only partially revealed by leaks. Now a key Democratic group is suggesting there might be 12 possibilities, including Orlando’s Rep. Val Demings.

On Tuesday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the group that supports Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives, put out a fundraising survey for supporters. It asks whom they think would be Biden’s best pick as a vice presidential running mate. It wasn’t a very short list.

Does the DCCC know whom Biden is now considering? Or is it just trying to appeal to supporters of many potential candidates?

On the survey, the DCCC lists the choices as Georgia politician Stacey Abrams, Wisconsin’s Sen. Tammy Baldwin, California’s Rep. Karen Bass, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Demings, Illinois’ Sen. Tammy Duckworth, California’s Sen. Kamala Harris, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, former White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Massachusetts’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Last week the Associated Press reported that the Biden campaign had narrowed its list, perhaps to as few as six. A source assured the AP that among those on the list were Harris, Rice, and Warren, but would not go further. That left speculation open to almost everyone else.

Demings, the former Orlando Police Chief, has gone on since then making appearances and talking as if she still believes herself to still be in the running. Monday night she appeared on the CNN show Anderson Cooper 360, where she told Cooper she didn’t know if she wanted the vice presidential nomination as much as maybe the vice presidential nomination may want her. She then sold her background — as someone who grew up in a modest Jacksonville household, experienced racism and injustice, sought to help people, became a social worker, and then a cop, and rose to police chief, and then a congresswoman — as perhaps exactly what is called for in this turbulent time in America.

Anyone taking the DCCC survey is directed to a page that asks a few more questions, such as “Are [you] excited about all of the progressive policies we can enact with a new administration?” and, naturally for the DCCC, “Do you agree that, no matter who Joe Biden selects as his running mate, we need a Democratic House Majority to support him and her?”

That’s followed by a request for money for the DCCC.