There’s the question.
Which is a bigger group? Winnable older White men or more of the winnable White women who went to Romney by 14 points last time and good turnout among younger voters?
Seriously the number of older White men who would vote for a woman president over Trump but not if it’s a two woman ticket is pretty small. Baiting Trump into more misogynistic crap and winning White women instead of losing them by 14? Hyuuuge.
Nothing any Presidential candidate says in public about who they want as VP tells us anything about who they actually want as VP.
I’m quite on-record stating I think Fiorina is completely unqualified to be president. Every time she fails at something, she doubles-down by refusing to learn anything from it, and instead decides her failure qualifies her for a bigger role. It’s a significant character flaw. But, that said, Cruz needed to place a big gamble, and thinking Trump might mouth off about Fiorina (again) and alienate the non-misogynistic part of his voting coalition in Indiana was a good bet. It just didn’t win.
She could have just not mentioned women at all. She didn’t say she’s considering minority candidates.
In the interview I saw, she was particularly asked about women.
LOL, I think that’s a very fair point, but from where I sit, that population of older white men is larger than you may believe. No way to know which of us is correct, really. The problem is, those old white guys always turn out to vote. Younger folks are less reliable.
Frankly, I’d be very surprised if I’m right on either of the two I proposed. But I have a hard time seeing Hillary picking anything but a very experienced white male who’s been in public service at a high level for a hyuuuuge amount of time. Someone with gravitas but brings a fairly progressive perspective. There weren’t too many to choose from.
Given the importance of the black vote, I would think that Cory Booker and Deval Patrick have to be on the short list. Especially with Trump making an active effort to woo African-Americans. We can assume he won’t be very successful, but he doesn’t have to be. Just winning 12% can swing the election, and just winning 10% puts him well within reach if he can win enough white voters.
Putting an African-American on the ticket probably shuts that down and means another 95-5 drubbing for Republicans. Plus, unlike with Latinos, there are African-American candidates ready to be President on Day 1. All the ready Latinos are Republicans.
You really think Trump can actually *gain *the ticket black votes? 
Compared to Romney yes, if for no other reason than that Obama enjoyed unusually high levels of black support. Cinton is more likely to enjoy Clintonian levels of black support.
Point being, of course, that she does not have to pander to an electorate whose support she already has.
Your concern for the Democratic ticket’s prospects is noted, however. Amusedly as always, of course.
In the alternate reality that is the Republican mind, black voters are going to conveniently forget Trump’s birtherism and continual ridicule of the first black president and come out in droves to vote for Trump because---- because Republican is the dominant gene? Why exactly?
Okay, just take them for granted, doesn’t bother me none.
To know for sure, no, but we can say what the current polling strongly suggests. Many polls at least break down by age, race, and gender. Also by education level (and I think that you’d accept that the older White males you reference are less likely to be college educated than younger ones are).
Look for example at the break-outs in the last Fox poll. Nothing earth-shattereing. Trump is up 15 in men (down 18 in women); up 16 in all Whites; has the same 42% in 65+ that he has in the only age demographic that he wins, the 35 to 54 group, with the difference being Clinton gets more in the 65+. One suspects that the difference in the 65+ is that older White women begin to outnumber older White men more dramatically. Interestingly a higher fraction of older men than older women vote, but in absolute numbers in 2012 it was still women 9.0 to 8.2 million in 65 to 74 y.o and 7.1 to 5.3 million in older than that.
Compared to how Romney did? He’s relatively up 7% in White men and down 9% in White women. (Although those lost White women have not all said yes to Clinton yet.) And “Trump leads Clinton 76 to 14 among white men without college degrees.”
Older White men, especially those without college degrees … she aint gonna win that demographic no matter who her VP choice is.
76-14. That’s African-American-like bloc voting. I had no idea it had gotten to that point. When did non-college educated white men suddenly become almost uniformly Republican?
She’s not taking them for granted. She’s just not going to extraordinary lengths to court them. Don’t exclude the middle.
Which is the difference between winning 90% with 50% turnout and winning 95% with 60% turnout.
This cycle to this degree. Trump is the last gasp of double-down on the group and his path relies on that traditionally low voter turnout group coming out to vote much more than they ever have before while he loses little enough elsewhere and does not provoke more than counter-balancing response in other demographics.
The point being that his pandering there has worked and he has that group solidly in his camp. Clinton can undercut some maybe but her path of least resistance is in non-college educated White women more than men.
Black turnout has not been as low as 50% for a long long time.
Still, there’s no guarantee that Clinton will do as well as Obama did. It would seem more likely that she’ll do as well as her husband did. A black VP would help with that.
A black VP would be overkill. Trump has incredible negatives with black voters, two of Hillary’s surrogates, Obama and Bill Clinton, are amazingly popular with black voters. Trump’s popularity with blacks is about as high as diarrhea, used car salesmen, root canals, and Jar Jar Binks.