Go Ahead Harris and Pick a Female VP! Unconventional Wisdom and the 2024 US Presidential Election

 

Politics is often about conventional wisdom. Yes, such wisdom is not alway

s correct and in fact often wrong. Going into the 2024 US presidential election there are three bits of conventional wisdom being circulated.

           One Kamala Harris must pick a white Caucasian male from a swing state as her vice president.

            Two, Harris cannot select a female as vice president.

            Three, the odds are still against her, according to the polls, and that Donald Trump is still favored to win the presidency.

            Politicians, pundits, and polls often are the basis for how journalists think about campaigns and elections.  They form the orthodoxy or received wisdom for a campaign cycle.  But received or conventional wisdom often is incorrect.

            Years ago I published an article which challenged two bits of conventional wisdom in politics. One was the belief that there was a bump from the location of a national political convention in a specific state. The second was that the selection of a vice president from a particular state would enhance the ability or competitiveness of that state for the party that selected that favorite son or daughter. I examined the data back to WWII and found that in fact, conventions provided no bump for the party in that state, or for that candidate. Additionally, there was no evidence that selection of a vice presidential candidate from a particular state would enhance the ability to win that state.

            Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, these two beliefs persist. Thus the reason why the Republicans chose Wisconsin in 2024 for the location of their convention.  Perhaps maybe that is why the Democrats picked Chicago for their convention because of its proximity to the Wisconsin media market.

            How does all this apply to 2024 and the three bits of conventional wisdom noted above?

            Since Harris became the likely Democratic Party nominee for president the focus has turned to who her vice presidential pick will be. Conventional wisdom is suggesting it has to be a person from a swing state and that it has to be a white Caucasian male. The  conventional wisdom is that a popular figure from that state will enhance the Democrats’ ability to win that state. The idea of being a white Caucasian male is to balance out the demographics of Kamla Harris.

            While the governors of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Michigan might all be amply qualified to be president, as well as Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, there's no indication that merely placing them on the ticket enhances the competitive competitiveness of those states.

            Think about it. According to many statistics, barely 40% of Americans can name the sitting vice-president. There is overwhelming political science research indicating that with one notable exception, vice presidents have little or no impact on presidential elections, and that people do not make their voting decisions for president based upon the vice presidential choice. The one notable exception 2008 when Sarah Palin was John McCain's vice presidential pick.  There is evidence that her lack of qualifications, at least according to the American public, potentially cost McCain one or two percentage points in the polls. But he was going to lose anyhow. So perhaps it really didn't matter in the end.

            If vice presidents do not matter, the demographics of the vice presidential candidate equally do not matter. This gets to the second argument that says that Harris cannot pick a female to be her vice president.

            On the one hand, if vice presidential picks don't matter, then perhaps it doesn't matter if the selection  is male or female, pick the best qualified candidate. But on the other hand in 2024 the 2024 election will decided across five or six swing states, with the choice being made by 150,000 to 200,000 voters. It is possible that who the vice-presidential candidate is might matter. And here despite conventional wisdom, it might make a lot of sense for Harris to pick a female vice presidential candidate.

            The single most important voter in American politics, are college educated suburban women. With that, it is also black women who are equally important in terms of voters. Democrats must mobilize both if they are expected to win the presidency. Harris appears to have Africa African American women and women in general. Why not consider placing a female on the ticket as vice president to even further mobilize female voters across the country. Women already are the majority of voters in the United States and there is gender gap favoring Democrats.  More heavily mobilizing the female vote makes an incredible amount of sense in many ways for Democrats much in the same way that Trump (and his selection of JD Vane as his running mate) was not about balancing out a ticket but in trying to  juice up the Trumpistas even more.

            Finally, politicians, pundits, and pollsters  are arguing that as of now, Harris is perhaps in no better situation to win the presidency  than Joe Biden was.

            That may be true as of July 22, or July 24, 2024.  But remember, polls are not predictors. They are snapshots in time and over time political  fortunes change.  Many of the famous prediction machines such as Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight often get it wrong. Back in 2016 on election day, FiveThirtyEight gave Hillary Clinton about an 80% chance of winning the election.

            Polls inform conventional wisdom. They may be accurate at a point in time. They do not always capture shifts in trajectory or shifts in campaigns. Harris's taking over from Biden resets the American presidential race. It gives her an opportunity to redefine the race to capture voters who did not like Biden but equally did not like Trump and it gives her the capacity to energize the base in ways that Biden did not.

            To challenge conventional wisdom. I would argue that Harris is much freer in whom she could select for her vice presidential pick. It doesn't necessarily have to be from a swing state. It doesn't necessarily have to be a white Caucasian male. Given the polarization in America, given the dislike for Donald Trump, and given how apparently she has already brought excitement  among many to her candidacy, conventional wisdom may be wrong in terms of her prospects this year.  Go ahead Harris—pick a female VP if you want.

 

The Case Against Klobuchar: Why She Should not be Biden’s Vice-Presidential Pick

            If Joe Biden and the Democratic Party wants to beat Donald Trump this fall selecting Amy

Klobuchar as the vice-presidential running mate is not going to do it.  If in fact vice-presidential candidates do matter the Minnesota Senator may be one of the least helpful picks Biden can make.

            Amy Klobuchar is being vetted by Joe Biden as a possible vice-presidential pick. Commentators such as Kathleen Parker,  David Byler,  Norman Sherman,  and probably every member of the DFL Party in Minnesota think she is the logical and obvious choice.  Of  course, they say, she is the perfect moderate to complement  Biden’s candidacy.  She has won in Trump territory; she will deliver Minnesota and appeal to Midwesterners.

            Let’s start with basics—vice-presidential picks really do not matter much. There is this conventional  folk wisdom, call it  an“old politicians’ tale," or cherry tree history (the reference to allegedly George Washington cutting down a cherry tree and admitting he did it by saying “I cannot tell a lie”)  that vice-presidential candidates  matter and they can be game changers for a candidate.  Some point to John Kennedy selecting  Lyndon Johnson in 1960 and winning Texas as proof.  However, Texas was still a Democratic Party state then.  Moreover, as the single best book on vice-presidential selection has shown, vice-presidential candidates have little impact on voter choices for president.  It is not that Veeps  do not matter at all, but their influence is very slight and the media and politico hype over them is really overblown.  Similarly,  there is little if no evidence that vice-presidential picks can help a presidential candidate win the former’s  home state.

            Let’s assume vice-presidential picks matter;  Is Klobuchar a good choice?  Not really for several reasons.  For one, she is a moderate just like Biden.  The liberal base of the Democratic Party needs to show up and vote in 2020 unlike in 2016 where it stayed home.  Biden does not excite the liberals, and neither does Klobuchar.  Klobuchar is similar to Hillary Clinton’s choice of Tim Kaine in 2016—unobjectionable but not excitable, especially to the liberals.

            Second,  there is  this belief that Klobuchar will help deliver  the Midwest or Trump voters  This is naïve for a couple of reasons.  One, Minnesota  is not like the rest of the Midwest; its politics is very different from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.  What plays here does not necessarily play elsewhere.  A Minnesotan on a ticket does not get you Wisconsin.  Proof of that is the second point—Klobuchar staked her presidential campaign on a good showing in Iowa—she came in a distant fifth.  Similarly, years ago Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty thought the Minnesota proximity to Iowa will lead to victory in the Hawkeye State—it did not.  There is simply limited appeal from one state to another.  As far as winning Trump voters, the day Klobuchar cast a guilty vote in the Senate to impeach Trump is the day she lost those voters.

            There is also the issue of maybe placing Klobuchar on the Biden ticket will help the latter hold Minnesota.  Recent polls show Biden in a competitive race with Trump for Minnesota.  Assuming Klobuchar can deliver Minnesota, the  problem is that if Minnesota is really in play and Biden needs her to hold the state then the Democrats are in real danger of losing the presidency.  Minnesota is a must-win state for Biden.

            Finally,  the police choking of George Floyd has all but ended Klobuchar as a viable vice-presidential candidate.  This racial incident, in the county where Klobuchar was a prosecutor, will only highlight the vulnerabilities the senator has with Black voters.  Biden is going to be under even more pressure to pick a person of color as vice-president and he needs  the Black vote to win.

            Amy Klobuchar may be a fine senator and perhaps would have made a good president or maybe even a vice-president.  Yet the issue is whether she can help Biden and Democrats is a  different question and  here it is not clear she can add to the ticket.

Bumpless Veeps and Voter Suppression

Paul Ryan–A Bumpless Veep
    It’s been slightly more than one week since Paul Ryan was selected by Mitt Romney as the latter’s vice-presidential pick.  The most remarkable think about that selection is that there is no bump.  What’s a bump?  Generally when a presidential candidate names a running mate there is a bump in the polls for the presidential contender.  The bump is due to increased media coverage, initial interest in the new Veep, or some other factor that simply gives at least a temporary up tick in the polls.  But as the New York Times reported today (August 20, 2012) and I talked about on Fox 9 news on Sunday night, Ryan has produced no more than a one-percent bump.
    One-percent?  That’s nothing!  Even Sarah Palin did more for John McCain, yielding perhaps 3-4 or so temporary points before dragging him down.  But with Ryan, the polls seem stagnant and  he has done very little to help Romney in the last week.  Why? Several reasons.  First, Romney picked a bad time to announce Ryan, coming near the end of Olympics and on a late Friday night.  The app they were going to use to announce also failed.  Overall, timing to maximize media coverage was poor.  Second, Ryan’s pick (as I argued in my last blog) was less meant to attract swing voters than to energize a conservative base still unexcited by Romney.  Romney has switched gears to run a base campaign, banking that he can out organize and deploy his supporters than can Obama, and then also pick up disgruntled swing voters who do not like the direction of the Obama economy.
    But Romney has not had much of a Ryan bump because in the last week he has been on the defensive over the latter’s budget, Medicare cuts, and his taxes.   The campaign has shifted to Romney defending himself and Paul and away from a critique of Obama, economy, and jobs. The next jobs report will put the economy back into the news, but for now, Paul Ryan has not yield the predicted bump in the polls.  Will the Tampa Republican Convention produce a bump?  We shall see (but also look forward to a coming blog about this were I discuss the myth of convention bumps).

Voter Suppression Minnesota Style
    Last Friday a Minnesota District Court issued an decision dismissing a case being brought by the Minnesota Voter Alliance (MVA) challenging the constitutionality of election day registration (EDR) and the right of disabled individuals who have guardians to vote. Had the suit been successful, the 500,000+ individuals who register to vote on election day potentially would have been disenfranchised along with all of the other individuals who have guardians.
    The MVA claimed that by allowing those who register to vote on election day to vote the votes of the others are being diluted.  The court simply dismissed this claim as meritless.   In effect, the MVA had failed to show an legal injury.  In rejecting the other argument about disabled voters, the court simply stated that these individuals had a constitutional right to vote and the MVA was wrong in asserting that they did not.  The ruling by the court was definitive and dismissive.  While the MVA has vowed to appeal, the case will go nowhere.  This is the second major legal loss for the MVA; their other one was challenging the constitutionality of ranked choice voting and they lost unanimously before the Minnesota Supreme Court.
    Voting rights in Minnesota are under assault.  MVA seeks to limit franchise as well as the Minnesota Majority.  Both groups raise the spectre and fears of voter impersonation, felons illegal voting, and election results altered due to voter fraud.  Again, the instances of voter fraud are so insignificant in Minnesota and across the country that one has a better chance of being struck by lightning than fraud affecting the outcome of an election.  Study after study has substantiated this proposition and there is no good evidence to contradict this assertion.  The most recent national study to support this argument was done by the Carnegie-Knight News21 program.

Vice-Presidential Running Mates: They Really Don’t Matter Much

Speculation over who Mitt Romney will select as his vice-presidential running mate is reaching a fever pitch.  Will it be Rob Portman from Ohio to help him capture that swing state, or will it be Mark Rubio from Florida to shore up that state and support with Hispanic voters?  Or will it be Tim Pawlenty from Minnesota, a working class social conservative to balance Romney’s Richy Rich image and mercurial support from the religious conservatives?

            While tremendous fuss is made over vice-presidential selection and convention wisdom declares that Veep selection can balance a ticket and offset presidential liabilities, the truth of the matter is that their value in terms of winning an election is of limited value.  Instead, it is more apt to say that the primary goal in selecting a vice-president is to find one who can do no harm.  Beyond that, locating one that adds real electoral value to the ticket is simply a bonus.

            Think about the office of the vice presidency.  It is an odd office with no comparable political office anywhere else in the world.  The two constitutional duties of the vice-president are to president over the Senate and vote to break ties, and then to succeed the president in the event the latter dies or is incapacitated.  As president pro temp vice presidents rarely vote.  Joe Biden has yet to cast a tie-breaking vote, Dick Cheney cast 8, Al Gore 4.  Instead, the Senate role for the vice-president is mostly ceremonial.  The other duty–waiting for the president to die or become incapacitated–does occur.  Gerald Ford became president upon Richard Nixon’s resignation, Johnson became president when Kennedy was assassinated, and Truman assumed the presidency when FDR died.  

            Succession is an important duty and that is why perhaps so much concern is raised over whom presidential candidates select for their Veep. But otherwise, vice-presidents have duties determined at the pleasure of the president.  They can range from purely ceremonial–attend funerals–to more substantive such as under Carter and Bush where Mondale and Cheney had significant policy roles. One great line about the vice-presidency tells the story of two brothers–one who becomes a missionary to Africa and the other vice-president, and neither were ever heard of again.

            Over time the criteria for vice-presidential select has varied.  In the early days of the republic the vice-president was the presidential runner up.  Federalist Party John Adams won the presidency and his Democratic-Republican rival Thomas Jefferson assumed the vice presidency.  Yet the election of 1800 where Jefferson and his vice-presidential candidate Aaron Burr tied in the Electoral College produced the Twelfth Amendment that made the presidential and vice-presidential candidates a ticket selected together.

            Throughout most of the nineteenth century geography was the preferred factor that dominated vice-presidential selection.  Presidential candidates from the north had to select southern or western running mates.  There is little evidence that such geographic balance really meant anything, but it nonetheless persisted as a legend important to presidential prospects well into the twentieth century.  Some point to JFK placing LBJ on the 1960 ticket as crucial to Democrats winning Texas, the south, and the election.  Yet in 1960 the south was still Democratic–at least nominally–even as late as 1968 Humphrey won Texas.

            Where geography actually seems important is with favorite son factors.  A vice-presidential   candidate might be useful in terms of helping a candidate when the Veep’s home state.  However, Lloyd Bentsen did not bring Texas over to Dukakis in 1988 and in 1980 Carter would have won Minnesota regardless of Mondale, Bush would have won Indiana without Quayle, and Bush would have won Wyoming without Cheney.   Clinton did win Tennessee in 1992 and 1996 with Gore in the ticket after Bush won the state in 1988.  Yet in 2000 as president Gore failed to win his home state as president.  Obama won Delaware in 2008 with Biden on the ticket but Kerry also won the state in 2004 with John Edwards on the ticket (who failed to win his state of North Carolina). Vice presidents as favorite sons who deliver their home states are inconclusive.

            There is little evidence that vice-presidential candidates affect voter turnout or presidential choice in any significant way.  Political science research indicates that for the most part voters select presidential candidates based on the person at the top of the ticket, not because of who is vice president.  Maybe vice-presidential choice sways one perhaps two percent of the voters, but it is not even clear this is the case.  Individuals who are most likely to be swayed by a presidential  selection–swing voters–are often those least likely to be politically informed or know who the vice-presidential candidate is.  Survey research in general suggests that only 59% of the population according to a Pew study can name who the vice-president is, let alone the candidate, suggesting the limited impact of a running mate in terms of affecting voter choice.

            Yet there are possible exceptions. Sarah Palin is potentially one.  By election day 2008 approximately 60%-65% of population thought she was unqualified to be president or vice president.  This was significant because a sizable portion of the population also expressed concern about John McCain’s age of 72 and whether he would survive four years.  Palin’s perceived lack of qualifications and high name recognition may have cost McCain two or three points in the election, but even then, Obama’s large victory and the other liabilities that McCain had question whether he really could have beaten Obama even with a different running mate.  Palin is more an example of another criteria of vice-presidential selection–at least pick someone who will not hurt the ticket even if a nominee cannot help.

            So what factors make sense in terms of guiding vice-presidential selection?  Discounting favorite son criteria (will the Veep help win his or her home state) which as noted above is questionable, several factors do make sense.  There are four possibilities.  First, will the vice-presidential candidate make an effective fund raiser?  Presidential campaigns are expensive big businesses and running mates who can generate cash are useful.  Second, will the vice-president be an effective pit bill in attacking or criticizing the opponent?  Often presidents do not want to do the dirty work of attacking the opposition so having a vice-presidential candidate such as a Robert Dole or a Spiro Agnew is good. 

            A third factor to consider is whether the vice-presidential candidate serves as an effective symbolic fig leaf to a faction within the party.  Maybe a candidate can reach out to the conservatives or moderates or other constituencies as part of a deal to win support or make them feel better about supporting the winner.  This type of selection criteria was more important in days of brokered conventions but one still hears of vice presidents serving a role in forging unity in a party.  Again, there is limited evidence that a vice-presidential candidate selected for this person actually delivers what is promised. Finally, a vice-presidential candidate may be selected simply because the president and this person get along or are friends.  The choice here has little to do with politics, it is simply personal.

            Overall, there is no magic bullet or evidence that declares who Romney should select.  Vice-presidential choices matter far less than the media and many political pundits seem to think.  Romney is best advised to go with the person he wants, using it as evidence of what types of decisions or choices he would make as president.  After all, the choice of vice-president is potentially the first and most important choice a president can make.