The Biden transition team has been vetting potential candidates for months and will present the president-elect with potential choices in the coming days. Biden is expected to focus first on posts involving public health and the economy, including the secretaries of the Treasury and Health and Human Services, along with West Wing personnel. The former vice president intends to be deliberative and is not likely to announce Cabinet nominations in the first week, according to an official close to the Biden team.

The president-elect will face incoming on several fronts, including from Democrats who expect him to nominate the most diverse Cabinet in history. That goal is not always compatible with the push from the party's vocal left wing to nominate the most progressive Cabinet since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Wall Street and Silicon Valley interests that poured money into Biden's campaign over the final stretch have a different set of priorities. So do Senate Republicans, at least a handful of whom Biden will need to confirm his nominees, if, as seems likely, the GOP maintains control of the chamber.

Biden can make history by nominating a person of color or a woman to head the Treasury or Defense departments — the only two remaining departments that have only ever had white men lead them.

Michele Flournoy, a former under secretary of Defense for policy, is already the frontrunner to lead the Pentagon. A number of women and people of color are also in the mix for the top job at Treasury, including Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard and TIAA CEO Roger Ferguson.

Biden, who pledged to unite the country during the campaign, will likely try to keep his coalition together by nominating a mix of progressives, moderates and even a few Republicans. He's also likely to draw in some fresh faces alongside longtime Biden loyalists. “I think one thing Joe Biden has always liked is a variety of viewpoints,” said former Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who served for six years alongside Biden in the Senate. In other words, expect Biden’s own self-styled “Team of Rivals.”

The likelihood that Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell will remain Senate majority leader, however, means that every Biden nominee will need to win at least a few Republican votes. That will limit Biden’s choices and makes it less likely some left-wing choices would be confirmed. House Democrats are also more wary of Biden tapping any of their members from competitive districts, given that their majority just narrowed and they don’t want to risk any upset special elections.

POLITICO has compiled lists of the early contenders for each Cabinet post, but new candidates may emerge. Biden has long been superstitious about making personnel decisions ahead of Election Day, and longtime allies expect some twists and turns as he assembles his team. The following names are based on dozens of conversations with Biden aides, his close allies, lobbyists and Hill staff.

Justice

Doug Jones

Alabama senator; former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama

With Tommy Tuberville’s defeat of Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) on Tuesday, Jones will be unemployed come January and available to join Biden’s cabinet. Jones wouldn’t add to the Cabinet’s diversity, but the former U.S. attorney in Alabama has credibility when it comes to civil rights: He led the successful prosecutions of two members of the Ku Klux Klan involved in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, nearly 40 years later. Jones also happens to be a friend of Biden’s, dating back to his work on Biden’s first presidential campaign in 1988.

Jones, however, is likely to have competition for the Attorney General post, including from Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Perez is “in the mix,” said Oscar Ramirez, a Democratic lobbyist who worked in the Obama administration and is active in Latino Democratic circles. Another person who’s tracked the early jockeying for attorney general said allies of Perez have floated his name.

Perez has Justice Department experience: He served as assistant attorney general for civil rights in President Barack Obama’s administration before Obama tapped him as Labor secretary. But he also faces a potential obstacle with Republicans likely to remain in control of the Senate: No Republicans voted to confirm him as Labor secretary in 2013, and it’s unlikely that his years leading the DNC have endeared him to the GOP.

Another name being mentioned is Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general in the Obama administration, who became a progressive cause célèbre when President Donald Trump fired her in the early days of his presidency for refusing to defend his executive order barring entry to people several Muslim countries. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is another potential candidate, Ramirez said, although he’s also been mentioned as a possible Homeland Security secretary. California Gov. Gavin Newsom might also tap Becerra, a former congressman, to fill the Senate seat that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will vacate in January. (Becerra previously succeeded Harris as California attorney general in 2017 following Harris’ election to the Senate.)

— Theodoric Meyer

Poster Comment:

Susan Rice for state. Michelle Flournoy for Pentagon.