Beto O’Rourke Takes A Page Out Of Biden’s Playbook — Floats Stacey Abrams As Running Mate

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke suggested while campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday that he might choose failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to run with him as his vice presidential candidate.

“I’m one of 21 — [there’s a] long way to go. I feel it to be a little presumptuous to begin selecting or defining who a running mate would be,” O’Rourke replied when asked if he would chose one of the women running against him for the Democratic nomination to be his running mate in the event he wins the primary.

“Just know this, it’s hard for me to escape the conclusion that if I were lucky enough to be your nominee, that I wouldn’t select one of these extraordinary women with whom I’m running right now or some other extraordinary woman who’s not running right now,” he continued. “Stacey Abrams is somebody who comes to mind for me right now.”

O’Rourke is not the first 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful that has suggested Abrams as a possible running mate. Top advisers to Joe Biden’s campaign discussed adding Abrams to the top of the ticket in March in an attempt to show Americans that the former vice president “isn’t just another old white guy.”

Abrams quickly rebuffed the idea of sharing the top of the ticket with Biden stating that “you don’t run for second place.”

After her unsuccessful run for governor in 2018, Abrams has openly mulled a second run for the position when Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s term expires in 2022. However, she is also considering launching her own bid for the presidency in 2020.

Abrams is well-known for her consistent accusations of widespread voter suppression during the 2018 election cycle, which she further claims is racially motivated. Following Abrams’s loss, she appeared regularly on cable news shows and at private events repeating those assertions. There has been no evidence to corroborate Abrams’s claims.