My previous post apparently convinced Biden to drop out of the Presidential race. You’re welcome.
So now what?
It appears that VP Harris will be the new Democratic nominee. She was immediately endorsed by Biden and numerous other party leaders. No one has yet volunteered to challenge her and even those of us who would prefer another candidate haven’t suggested that they wouldn’t support her. Let’s just call it done. Harris will be the new Democratic nominee.
With Harris at the top of the ticket, the basic electoral map doesn’t immediately improve for Democrats. Harris does, however, stop the hemorrhaging. At least for the moment. Democrats, led by Harris, have a major opportunity to restart this election season, motivate their voters up and down the ballot, and dominate a month of news cycles until the Democratic National Convention on August 22. Not that Democrats couldn’t easily squander this opportunity. Unfortunately: Yes We Can!!
First, let me quickly dismiss the notion that a ticket change is somehow illegal (as recently suggested by House Speaker Johnson). It’s not. There will most definitely be numerous legal challenges, but they will have no basis in law. The party nominating process is a political construct, not a legal one. If party rules disallow something, the party can simply change those rules. Legally, until the nominating convention, Democrats can do whatever they want. There are one or two exceptions where state laws require candidates to be named a bit earlier, but those are all red states. Any efforts to keep Harris off the ballot in red states – even efforts that eventually fail – would give Democrats a ready-made campaign issue (“Republicans fight against Democracy!”) while giving Republicans zero potential electoral upside. I don’t think even our partisan SCOTUS would find a majority to support keeping Harris off of any state ballot (although 2 to 4 votes would be more than happy to simply declare Trump the winner right now).
Second, I’ll suggest that Harris has to come out of the gate with some solid policy proposals. They don’t have to be immediately detailed, but she has to position herself as her own person. She can’t just say that all of Biden’s policies are peachy keen with her. In my opinion, she also has to strike a conciliatory tone to try to unite America. She can’t; but she has to try. The top of the Democratic ticket shouldn’t be constantly negative. Her speeches need to be all freedom and apple pie, leaning into her own backstory. Harris needs to let surrogates, led by her VP pick, be the campaign’s primary attack dogs.
Which brings me to her choice for Vice President.
It’s not in Harris’ interest to immediately name her VP pick. A ton of names have already been floated and pundits have been tripping all over themselves trying to handicap the choices. I’m about to do the same. Harris should let the news cycles speculate all they want and keep Trump/Vance as a secondary story.
From my perspective, the Democratic VP selection is a math problem. Period. Democrats already know the Republican choice and Vance brings next to nothing to their electoral count. He’s not well-known outside of his home state and Ohio was already solidly red.
I’ll eventually get around to another detailed analysis of the Electoral College. It’s tough to do serious analytics when the world is moving so fast. In the meantime, I’d hazard to guess that a current Harris/TBD vs. Trump/Vance map looks remarkably similar to the Biden/Harris vs. Trump/TBD map that I described in mid-April. The trick now is to see how a Democratic VP pick might tilt that map toward Democrats. Nothing else matters with respect to the VP choice and everything else is noise. As a high school math teacher used to scream at us if she thought our minds were wandering: “Is it math?” If a pick doesn’t demonstrably help Harris get to 270 electoral votes, it’s not at all interesting.
Let’s examine a few choices.
While I’d personally prefer to have MI Gov. Whitmer at the top of the Democratic ticket, I’ll stand by my previous support for a Harris/Whitmer ticket. An All-Woman ticket would be historic and would provide a massive contrast to the Republican All-Rich-White-Idiot ticket. Whitmer has said she doesn’t want to be VP, but she needs to be convinced. She wants to be President someday and, win or lose, this race would give her the national exposure that she currently lacks. Most importantly, she moves MI to solid Democratic; WI and PA to Lean Democratic. Even just those three states, in addition to the states I previously put in the Solid or Lean Democratic column, give Democrats exactly 270 electoral votes. That’s a win, but it’s way too close. In this scenario, I’d cede FL to Republicans, make sure the Lean Democratic states stay that way, spend some money in GA and NC, and concentrate on adding NV and/or AZ as a cushion:
Democrats actually have an impressive bench, but other VP choices aren’t as solid from an electoral standpoint. In descending order of my preference after Whitmer, here’s a few options:
- PA Gov. Josh Shapiro has a bright future, but he might not be ready for the national stage. He would move PA from Toss Up to Solid Democratic. He might also help move WI and MI to Lean Democratic – just not as much as Whitmer. Still, the math looks similar to Whitmer’s, making Shapiro a decent backup choice.
- AZ Sen. Mark Kelly would make an excellent VP, but he doesn’t help enough from an electoral standpoint. His Democratic Senate seat would unfortunately become vacant if a Harris/Kelly ticket won, but the Democratic AZ governor would at least appoint a Democrat for a two-year term. Kelly could move AZ and NV from Toss Up to Lean Democratic, but that only puts the Solid+Lean Democratic number at 233 – which isn’t nearly enough. This ticket would have to move a few more Toss Up states to win the election. Interestingly, though, Kelly’s background as an astronaut gives him some history in FL and TX. That background wouldn’t be enough to win either state but could be very useful for fund-raising and it could force Republicans to spend some money there to counter him.
- NC Gov. Roy Cooper does have a history of winning in a Republican state and he could move NC from Lean Republican to Lean Democratic. However, that’s about all the help he gives the ticket.
- KY Gov. Andy Beshear also has a history of winning in a Republican state, but he likely wouldn’t even carry KY in a Presidential election.
- CA Gov. Gavin Newsome, IL Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, all good people from solidly Democratic states, bring little to the electoral count.
- Secretary Pete Buttigieg would make a great VP and an exciting candidate, but he wouldn’t carry his home state of IN. Sadly, he even likely moves the rust belt swing states from Toss Up to Lean Republican.
Dear Democrats: This is way too important and you now have a chance. Please don’t screw it up.