I will be horrified if it happens, but … say Biden dies or is incapacitated after securing the nomination – so, anytime from spring '24 onward. The party agrees that Harris should be the nominee. She instantly polls well behind the GOP nominee. What VP candidate gives her the best chance of closing the gap and winning the general election?
You can assume the GOP nominee is Trump, or choose someone else, and speculate from there. But please don’t fight the hypothetical by saying the Dems would nominate someone else (or that the Dems cannot win without Biden at the top of the ticket).
Maybe but not necessarily. Off the top of my head, what seems reasonable to me is someone who has the same sort of appeal that Biden did as Obama’s running mate in 2008. I’m not sure who that would be, though. Dick Durbin comes to mind, maybe because he’s my own senator, but at 78 he may be too old, and I haven’t ever heard of him having (vice-)presidential ambitions. And now I’m second-guessing my whole premise, because Obama faced a very different opponent, in a different political climate, than what Harris would face in 2024.
She could conceivably nominate someone as an interim VP and someone else as the candidate to serve as VP from '25 forward. In that case, what I’m looking for is the candidate.
I like Kelly, but he represents Arizona, which isn’t a solidly Democratic state, and his seat wouldn’t be considered to be safely blue.
That said, his current terms runs until 2026, and Arizona’s Democratic governor would be responsible for appointing another Democrat to fill his seat for the remainder of his term.
TBH, were something bad to happen to Biden, I really think she would be the president until the end of the term, and would not seek, nor would she accept, the nomination for the presidency next year.
The flip side of that is, would he get a free head start on talking glowingly about John McCain when trying to peel away folks (a) who voted for McCain (b) from voting for the ‘24 GOP ticket? Heck, I figure the softball questions practically write themselves…
I’m going to assume that Harris would nominate and run with the same individual – it would be strikingly odd if she didn’t.
Generally, I don’t think VP candidates make much of a difference at all to the success of the ticket. Polling usually shows the ticket gets about a 5% bump in the aftermath of the announcement, but it pretty quickly fades.
A nomination fight, though, could change that. Singularly, the VP has to be approved by both the Senate AND the House of Representative. House Republicans will go absolutely bonkers arguing that the nominee as a socialist at best and a lizard person at worst. The focus should be on finding a candidate who will bring out their absolute ugliest and turn Americans broadly against overreaching, frothing Republicans like the Clinton impeachment did.
I’m not sure who. I’m not a particular fan of Pete Buttigieg, but the horrific homophobic rhetoric they would employ to oppose him might do the trick.
Kevin Newsom, the current governor of CA. She knows him well and gets along with him. He’s young, very personable, energetic and politically ambitious. I wish Biden would step aside and let him run, as I think he’d beat Trump in a walk.
Under the 12th Amendment, electors cannot vote for both a President and VP from their state. So California’s electors couldn’t vote for both Harris and Newsom on the same ticket.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer? Or do we feel that there must be a male on the ticket? It’s a pity Alan Bible is dead-can you imagine the ads saying “The GOP is anti-Bible”?
Since we’re spitballing here, how about Barack Obama?
He’s experienced, he’s popular among Democrats, he’s not going to be intimidated by Donald Trump. The fact that he’s Black is not going to lose any votes that Harris wouldn’t already have lost. And he’s still only 62 years old and can climb a flight of stairs without holding the rail with both hands.
Of course, there’s the 22nd Amendment question, but I figure we can fight that Constitutional question out when Harris nominates him to the vacant office of VP. Then we have the spectacle of Obama getting confirmed by the Republican House of Representatives. But I theorize that Donald Trump would fall for taking on Obama like Khan got suckered by Admiral Kirk. He’d tell the House Republicans to put Obama into the ring.