Biden, according to White House advisers, is open to appointing Blum to an ambassadorial position, which is among the most coveted positions in any administration. After prioritizing the appointments of his West Wing team and cabinet, the president and his top advisers have only recently begun to consider who to send abroad.
A potential ambassador, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said that Biden himself wants to examine the list of potential nominees and is not in a hurry.
There is, however, growing impatience among candidates for envoys. Former senators, including some who served in the Senate with Biden, are particularly eager to get some clarity and have noticed how few in their ranks have joined the government so far, according to a prominent Democrat who spoke to them.
The president, himself a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is attempting a delicate balancing act: rewarding loyal donors and former colleagues without flooding the diplomatic corps with political appointees, as some of his associates thought the former President Donald J. Trump had done.
Former senators who could be named ambassadors include Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who supported Biden; Joe Donnelly, from Indiana; North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp; Ken Salazar, from Colorado; and Christopher J. Dodd, of Connecticut.
It is not just ex-members of Congress looking for positions. Some current lawmakers still hope to join the government, but are waiting because of Biden’s own deliberations and the narrow majority of Democrats. For example, Representative Dina Titus of Nevada, one of Biden’s first supporters, hopes to be an ambassador, but there are currently three Democratic seats in the House, where the party holds a small majority.
Blum’s desire for an ambassadorial position may have consequences, however. Governor Gavin Newsom of California, facing an increasingly likely threat of recall and eager to energize his party’s base, promised in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Monday night that he would appoint a black woman to replace Feinstein. He acknowledged that he had “several names in mind” for a vacancy that does not exist.