The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee said Vice President Kamala Harris should lead his party’s ticket with Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) by her side should President Joe Biden end his reelection bid.
Howard Dean floated the hypothetical Harris-Cooper ticket during an interview on Thursday.
“If the president decides not to run … I would favor a Harris-Cooper ticket, and I think we would pick up North Carolina as a result,” Dean told CNN’s Abby Phillip.
Dean served as the DNC chairman between 2005 and 2009. His words of support for Harris came after Phillip suggested some Democrats would prefer an open convention process instead of supplanting Harris right away.
“She happens to be black and she happens to be a woman,” Dean said on CNN. “Who are the two most important groups in the coalition the Democrats need to win? They are women and they are people of color.”
“If the president decides not to run, I see Kamala Harris and I would hope Roy cooper, who is the former governor or the governor of North Carolina, who’s not running again, I think it will be actually easier for us to win North Carolina,” former DNC Chair Howard Dean tells me pic.twitter.com/lvS8dZFuOI
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 18, 2024
The former top Democrat believes proposals to push an open convention and kick Harris off the top of the ticket are absurd.
“We’re going to kick out a black woman from the perceived No. 1 slot; she’s in the No. 2 slot?” Phillips rhetorically asked. “I don’t think so. That would really roil the party.”
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Many Democrats are openly considering alternatives to Biden as the 81-year-old’s bid for reelection wobbles.
Cooper is term limited as North Carolina’s governor and will be replaced at the end of this year. Democrats are hoping they can pick up North Carolina in the Electoral College for the first time since 2008.