Amy Klobuchar says she is dropping out of the running to be vice president and urging Democrat Joe Biden to select a non-white woman instead.
The white Minnesota senator, who had seen her prospects fall as racial tensions swept the nation, said she called the presumptive presidential nominee on Wednesday night and made the suggestion.
Mr Biden has already committed to choosing a woman as his running mate.
"I think this is a moment to put a woman of colour on that ticket," Ms Klobuchar said on MSNBC.
Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Source: Getty
"If you want to heal this nation right now - my party, yes, but our nation - this is sure a hell of a way to do it."
Ms Klobuchar's chances at getting the VP nod diminished after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
Ms Klobuchar was a prosecutor years ago in the county that includes Minneapolis, and during that period, more than two dozen people - mostly minorities - died during encounters with police.
Mr Floyd's death last month set off days of protests across the country and criticism that as the county's top prosecutor, Ms Klobuchar didn't charge any of the officers involved in citizen deaths.
Officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged with Mr Floyd's murder, had been involved in one of those cases, the fatal 2006 shooting of a man accused of stabbing people and aiming a shotgun at police.
Ms Klobuchar, 60, was among a large field of Democrats who had sought the 2020 presidential nomination, running as a pragmatic Midwesterner who has passed over 100 bills.
She dropped out and threw her support behind Mr Biden before the crucial 3 March "Super Tuesday" contests after struggling to win support from black voters, who are crucial to Democratic victories.
Her best finish of the primary was in overwhelmingly white New Hampshire, where she came in third.
The third-term senator had to cancel one of the final rallies of her campaign after Black Lives Matter and other activists took the stage in Minnesota to protest her handling of a murder case when she was prosecutor that sent a black teen to prison for life.
Democrats with knowledge of the process told The Associated Press last week that Mr Biden's search committee had narrowed the choices for his running mate to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews.
Among the group still in contention: Ms Warren, California Senator Kamala Harris and Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama's national security adviser. Ms Warren is white; both Harris and Rice are black.
Mr Biden has said he will announce his VP decision by 1 August.
