“There has been a conversation by pundits about ‘electability’ and ‘who can speak to the Midwest,'” Harris said at an NAACP dinner in Detroit Sunday. “It leaves out people in this room, who helped build cities like Detroit.”

Minority voters make up a tiny share of the electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire, but are critical for racking up delegates later in the primary season. Harris has been campaigning recently in states like Georgia, Michigan and Ohio, which hold their primaries deeper into the calendar, contain delegate-rich big cities with large African-American populations and could be competitive in the general election.

Harris’ case against the “electability” argument for Biden revolves around the idea that the Democratic nominee will need a coalition that includes an energized contingent of voters of color. Right now, Biden is not only the far-and-away leader in the Democratic race, with a 41.4 percent mark in the Real Clear Politics average of polls, but he is the favorite among black and Hispanic voters.