Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday said he thinks Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California is the leading candidate to be Joseph R. Biden’s vice-presidential pick.
“I think she’s the leading candidate,” Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“She didn’t run a particularly effective campaign for president, but as a number two she would be tough,” he said. “If I were a betting person, that’s who I would bet on.”
Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said at a fundraising event on Wednesday he hopes to name his pick around the beginning of August.
“I think that I need somebody who in fact is simpatico with me, both in terms of personality as well as substance,” the former vice president said. “That means that they don’t have to agree with me on everything, but they have to have the same basic approach to how we handle the economy and how we handle everything.”
Mr. Biden has already committed to choosing a woman and is facing pressure to pick an African-American after he was forced to apologize for his comments last week that people supporting President Trump “ain’t black.”
“Joe may be the first guy in American political history to lose control over picking his own vice president,” Mr. Graham said. “I think he’s put himself in a box.”
But Mr. Graham, who is up for reelection this year, said Republicans shouldn’t underestimate Mr. Biden.
“He’s nicer than Hillary Clinton, and he’s not as wild as Bernie Sanders on policy,” he said. “He will be appealing at first glance, but what we have to do is associate him with an agenda that’s not appealing. He’s the front guy of a very dangerous agenda.”
“Joe Biden will not be easy to beat,” Mr. Graham said.
