Intelligencer - We Can't Go On Like This Much Longer

Ben: In recent history, most presidential candidates haven’t picked a running mate simply with the goal of winning a particular swing state, and evidence shows the effect of doing so is small anyway. With that in mind, will Joe Biden — who would be by far the oldest president ever elected — focus more on someone who might be able to step into his shoes than on someone who might be able to boost him by a point or two in a particular place?

Ed: That’s kind of a false choice, because there are other reasons (party unity, boosting enthusiasm in a particular demographic across state lines) that could come into play.

Ben: So you’re saying that someone in a swing state could fit the other criteria anyway.

Ed: Well, yes, but I’m saying something else, too: that there are electoral effects not isolated to particular states, though they might matter there, too.

Zak: I think Biden signaled his rationale when he promised to choose a woman as a running mate. That obviously doesn’t preclude any of the other considerations, all of which a woman could satisfy — someone who could step into his shoes, help his prospects in a swing state, unify the party, boost enthusiasm. But the fact that he mentioned gender without mentioning any of those others suggests that it was, at least at the time, a more urgent consideration. At the very least, we can safely conclude that he was trying to appease voters for whom that would be especially important, which seems like a notch in the “enthusiasm” column to me.

Ed: Yeah, plus “do no harm” is probably the biggest factor in picking a veep. Had he picked a white man, there would have been blowback. In recent memory, there have been just two really surprising veep choices: Gore and Palin. The former was intended to double down on Clinton’s appeal, so that leaves Palin as a unique “high-risk, high-reward” choice, as one McCain adviser put it at the time.

Ben: There is a chorus of influential black Democrats — Jim Clyburn and Al Sharpton among them — who say that Biden should select a black woman — possibilities that group has floated include Stacey Abrams, Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms, and Kamala Harris, who is currently the oddsmakers’ favorite. The goal is to shore up black Democratic support, which dipped slightly in 2016 and shows some signs of dipping slightly again this year. But recent polling shows that far fewer black voters than white voters cared about the fact that a white man is leading the 2020 ticket. Will simply picking a black woman do much, if anything, to reverse (small) turnout trends?

Zak: It’s true, at least as far as polling indicates, that the median black Democrat doesn’t care that Biden chooses a black running mate. It’s also true that some of his potential running mates help his ticket in head-to-heads against Trump-Pence more than others. I’m thinking specifically of the Data for Progress poll that found a Biden-Stacey Abrams ticket performed well across most demographics, and better overall than any other Biden-led ticket. Whether that’s because she’s black, a woman, unknown enough that people can project their favored traits and politics onto her, or all the above, I don’t know. But the point is that even if picking a black woman in and of itself isn’t enough, picking the right black woman could be.

Ed: There is also something intangible that might matter to Biden personally: gratitude. He owes everything he’s achieved in 2020 to African-Americans, from Obama to the black voters in Nevada and South Carolina who saved his bacon. But I agree with Zak that the specific identity of the veep matters a lot. Thing is, the only white veep prospect who stands clearly above the list of possibilities is Elizabeth Warren. If Biden doesn’t go with her, he might as well choose a woman of color as a reminder that the Democratic Party is preeminently a multiracial coalition.

Ben: Yeah, there are also those who say Biden should pick someone like Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, to expand his appeal with Latinos — a group he has much less of a traditional connection with than black voters.

Ed: I just don’t know if there is a Latina option who has a personality as dazzling as Stacey’s — but I admit I am not that familiar with Grisham, or with Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto, another name you hear a lot.

Ben: Going back to Warren: She is obviously very popular among progressives, and her selection would be more than an olive branch to the left. However, she and Biden have a less-than-harmonious history, though her endorsement of him a couple weeks ago was well-received. Do you see any realistic chance that he’ll actually pick her?

Zak: I have trouble envisioning it, especially since a lot of Warren’s political appeal and legislating power derives from a kind of ideological cachet predicated on holding people like Biden’s feet to the fire. That’s inviting quite a bit of tension into your administration so early on. Although I’m well aware that part of the fallout from Bernie’s loss has entailed rhetorically shrinking the daylight between Warren and more moderate Establishment figures like Biden. So it feels like a stretch, but sure, could happen. It’s not like Biden is ideologically inflexible, within limits.

Ed: The reason I wrote something recommending a Biden-Warren ticket can be summed up in one word that transcends the very sensible concerns Zak just articulated: coronavirus. A lot of Warren’s traits that left voters cold or meh normally could strike them very differently in an emergency that calls for a combination of competence and compassion, particularly when it comes to the economic fallout. That Biden might actually take her advice is a factor, too.