Stacey Abrams seems likely to be in the conversation as a potential vice presidential pick next year. A second Georgian could also be on plenty of short-lists in 2020.
Former Vice President Joe Biden floated the names of both Abrams and Sally Yates, the ex-acting U.S. Attorney General from Atlanta, at a campaign stop in Iowa over the weekend.
Biden didn't name anyone specifically but said there are a number of people who are qualified.
"I could start naming people but the press will think that's who I picked," he said, before obliquely referring to several potential candidates.
His list included "the former assistant attorney general who got fired," referring to Sally Yates; "the woman who should have been the governor of Georgia," referring to Stacey Abrams; and "the two senators from the state of New Hampshire," referring to U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.
Abrams ruled out a 2020 run for president in August, when she unveiled a national expansion of her voting rights group. But she has left open the possibility of accepting an offer to be a running mate, a prospect she's raised any time she's asked.
"My political future will be determined in the future. But my present and the work that needs to be done before my party chooses the nominee will be focusing on electoral opportunities and fighting voter suppression," she told the AJC recently.
(And don't forget the private sit-down between Abrams and Biden in March that triggered reports – flatly denied by both camps – that Biden was considering launching his bid with a pledge to make Abrams his No. 2.)
Yates has not generated the same sort of speculation as Abrams, partly because she’s repeatedly said she’s not interested in running for public office.
The former federal prosecutor was the acting U.S. attorney general for the first 10 days of the Trump administration, before the president fired her for refusing to defend his travel ban.
Yates has since served as a lecturer at Georgetown University and returned to King & Spalding, the tony Atlanta-based law firm where she once worked in the 1980s.
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