--- title: How Joe Biden Changed the Veepstakes description: Biden's promise to pick a woman running mate and his description of himself as a "transition candidate" have intensified the process canonical: https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/ author: Lissandra Villa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-05-21T17:30:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:06.155Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Joe Biden Changed the Veepstakes og:description: Biden's promise to pick a woman running mate and his description of himself as a "transition candidate" have intensified the process og:url: https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt908d64b3f95b0a4f/698a0e5c97cdff39ed6bac5d/GettyImages-1206913334.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Joe Biden Talks About the Coronavirus in Washington, US og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Joe Biden Changed the Veepstakes twitter:description: Biden's promise to pick a woman running mate and his description of himself as a "transition candidate" have intensified the process twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt908d64b3f95b0a4f/698a0e5c97cdff39ed6bac5d/GettyImages-1206913334.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Joe Biden Transformed the Competition for the Vice Presidency > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=cd8c2af6-a099-48a3-802e-9fdf91b10b27&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Monday to Saturday (3x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 85,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 37.0% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Philip Elliott, Senior Correspondent | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership The policy influence ecosystem. A policy-focused audience spanning government, public affairs, advocacy, law, research, political media, and the institutions that make, interpret and respond to public policy. ### TIME D.C. Brief: key statements * D.C. Brief is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * D.C. Brief is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=cd8c2af6-a099-48a3-802e-9fdf91b10b27&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/subscribe?i=cd8c2af6-a099-48a3-802e-9fdf91b10b27&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is TIME's politics newsletter? D.C. Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Sen. Amy Klobuchar Talks About Her Husband's Health and Election Security, but Not Joe Biden's VP Pick [Watch (HLS stream): Sen. Amy Klobuchar Talks About Her Husband's Health and Election Security, but Not Joe Biden's VP Pick](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hU05juh4.m3u8) (2:29)  _Published 2020-04-23. TIME hosts the first-ever TIME 100 Talks_  by [Lissandra Villa](https://time.com/author/lissandra-villa/)  ## Lissandra Villa May 21, 2020 5:30 PM UTC  Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the Coronavirus and the response to it at the Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington, DE, on March 12, 2020 Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the Coronavirus and the response to it at the Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington, DE, on March 12, 2020 Michael Brochstein —Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media/Getty Images  by [Lissandra Villa](https://time.com/author/lissandra-villa/)  ## Lissandra Villa May 21, 2020 5:30 PM UTC On a pleasant day in August 2008, Senator Joe Biden put on a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses and drove a pickup truck to his sister’s Delaware home. He was there for a secret meeting with David Axelrod and David Plouffe, top aides to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama. The three men sat by the backyard pool for about two hours. It was one of three clandestine meetings the aides had with top candidates as Obama’s running-mate selection process wound down. Now Biden is the one doing the vetting as the presumptive nominee. But the process, while still early, is unfolding a bit differently. Part of that is the man at the top of the ticket. Obama was the first black presidential nominee, a change agent in his 40s who sought experience in his running mate, and picked his vice president from a short list of three white men. Biden, 77, has cast himself as a transitional figure who will pass on the mantle to a rising generation of Democratic stars. He has promised to choose a woman as his nominee. The pool of potential running mates have also been more candid about their own interest in the job. Rather than giving the traditional I-would-be-honored-but-am-focused-on-my-current-job demurral, some interested parties have been more forthcoming. “People have been more outwardly, more overtly willing to talk to their ambition than they have been in that past,” Axelrod says. Former Georgia state House minority leader Stacey Abrams has said she would accept if she were asked to fill the role. In an [interview with PBS](https://twitter.com/FiringLineShow/status/1261074764891906048?s=20), former national security adviser Susan Rice said, “I certainly would say yes” if Biden tapped her for the job. And in an [MSNBC interview with Rachel Maddow,](https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1250601895183429632?s=20) when asked if she would serve if offered the position, Sen. Elizabeth Warren simply replied: “Yes.” The shift may be due in part to Biden’s own public comments, which appeared to open the door to the possibility that he could serve only one term. “I view myself as a transition candidate,” Biden said at a fundraiser at the end of April. Though Biden has [denied speculation that he has considered](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-campaign-refutes-speculation-one-term-pledge-n1099766) serving only one term, the outside chance that a Democratic president could cede the stage to his running mate has made a coveted job even more attractive. Whoever he picks could be a top contender for the Democratic nomination as early as 2024\. “I’m sure that it has occurred to people that because Biden has basically said he’s a transitional figure that whoever is Vice President would have a leg up moving forward,” Axelrod says. The field began to form at the final Democratic primary debate, with Biden’s [promise to choose](https://time.com/5803677/joe-biden-woman-vice-president/) a woman running mate. In addition to Abrams, Rice, and Warren, potential candidates are thought to include Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Governors Michelle Lujan Grisham, whom Politico reported [recently told ](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/biden-vice-president-latino-leaders-261305)allies that she’s being vetted, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are also said to be in the mix, along with Representative Val Demings of Florida and Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta. Biden’s campaign declined to answer questions from TIME about whether they have requested information from potential running mates or whether Biden has spoken privately with any of them, citing “the privacy of the potential candidates.” Yet Biden hasn’t been shy about dropping hints. In interviews, he’s mentioned Demings and Whitmer as among “[close to a dozen](https://www.wftv.com/news/politics/extended-conversation-joe-biden-sits-down-with-eyewitness-news/WKJ56BGPZ5AKBHWKBI7HL3ERFQ/) really qualified and talented women who are on the list.” And he’s done a series of public events alongside politicians who are considered potential contenders, including a joint interview with Abrams and a virtual fundraiser with Klobuchar. Allies of prospective candidates have been promoting them. Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive who served as a national campaign co-chair to Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, [tweeted](https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1260966459943137281?s=20) that Warren “needs to be on the ticket.” VoteVets, a Democratic group that supports veteran candidates, [plugged Duckworth](https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1261316035073978368?s=20), who also got a boost from her Illinois Senate partner, Dick Durbin. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has [urged Biden](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/cortez-masto-could-boost-biden-candidacy-2015322/) to consider Cortez Masto, a fellow Nevadan. Biden’s campaign has a full selection committee in place, led by former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Cynthia Hogan, a Biden adviser. But the process has been complicated by the pandemic. Biden does not have the luxury of easily meeting face-to-face with prospective running mates (which even during normal times requires acrobatics from campaigns to keep under wraps), as Obama did with him. There are no joint fundraisers or rallies in front of live audiences to test chemistry on a stage or how the audience reacts to the pairing. Such events are often veiled auditions. Amy Dudley, a former aide to Senator Tim Kaine, recalls Kaine being invited to participate in events for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, including one in Northern Virginia that featured Clinton herself. “That was definitely an attempt to test out the dynamic,” Dudley says. Clinton later tapped Kaine to join her ticket. Beyond looking for a governing partner, there are political considerations for Biden in rounding out the ticket. In a primary where his age and ideology were often under scrutiny, his decision could serve as an olive branch to younger, more progressive factions of the party. “It is important that people understand, and he admits, he’s not the future of the party,” says Ian Sams, who was national press secretary for Harris’s presidential campaign. “He’s going to need to pick somebody who is \[a\] younger, potentially more dynamic and energizing figure to help balance the ticket and ensure the Democratic Party is invested.” The candidates have adjusted in their own ways. There are fewer women than men in national politics, and even fewer women of color on the national stage. But those who are on it have learned to advocate for themselves along the way, and brought that forthright approach to the vice-presidential selection process. Abrams, who at least as [early as August 2019](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/politics/stacey-abrams-vice-president.html) told The New York _Times_ that she “would be honored to be considered by any nominee” and who early last year [met privately with Biden](https://apnews.com/0f2e21e505ea4eb8bbcd1b2ded9c2b76), made both these points [in an interview with TIME](https://time.com/5838371/stacey-abrams-joe-biden-vice-president/) on May 19\. When asked whether she thought a man would be criticized for being open about his ambition the way she is, she simply said: “No.” “What I’ve responded to has been the question of whether I believe I should stand for it if I’m invited, and whether I can,” Abrams says. “And as a woman of color, I think about the women who are looking at me, the young women of color, those who’ve been told to hide their interest and pretend through coyness that they don’t have ambition. My ambition is to serve.” _—With reporting by Molly Ball_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/"},"headline":"How Joe Biden Transformed the Competition for the Vice Presidency","datePublished":"2020-05-21T17:30:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:52:06.155Z","description":"Biden's promise to pick a woman running mate and his description of himself as a \"transition candidate\" have intensified the process","url":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/","keywords":["2020 Election","feature"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt908d64b3f95b0a4f/698a0e5c97cdff39ed6bac5d/GettyImages-1206913334.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lissandra Villa","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/lissandra-villa/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt908d64b3f95b0a4f/698a0e5c97cdff39ed6bac5d/GettyImages-1206913334.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Joe Biden Talks About the Coronavirus in Washington, US","caption":"Joe Biden Talks About the Coronavirus in Washington, US","creditText":"Michael Brochstein —Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2020-election/","name":"2020 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/","name":"How Joe Biden Transformed the Competition for the Vice Presidency"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"No, Stacey Abrams Doesn't Think She'd Be Criticized For Being Candid About Her Ambition if She Were a Man","description":"As coronavirus ravages the nation and the 2020 presidential election plods along, Stacey Abrams, a former House minority leader in the Georgia legislature, has found herself in the middle of the news — and not least because she has expressed interest","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CKafNcp4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2020-05-21T17:30:13.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CKafNcp4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/","duration":"PT4M54S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Sen. Amy Klobuchar Talks About Her Husband's Health and Election Security, but Not Joe Biden's VP Pick","description":"TIME hosts the first-ever TIME 100 Talks","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/hU05juh4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2020-04-23T20:42:03.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hU05juh4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/","duration":"PT2M29S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5839485/joe-biden-vice-presidential-nominee/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```