With the Republican National Convention two months away, Donald Trump is honing in on his choice for a running mate, but political scientists suggest that picking a candidate in an effort to win over key voting groups may not be the best strategy — just look at Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s strategists have a variety of approaches when it comes to who Trump should pick for his vice president, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some suggest that Trump should pick a running mate that will win over black and Hispanic voters. Other advisers say Trump should pick someone who will appeal to swing-state voters, and some say Trump should pick a candidate not directly involved in the Republican Party in an effort to strengthen his “outsider image.”
However, political scientists Christopher Devine and Kyle Kopko suggest in their 2020 book Do Running Mates Matter? that choosing a vice president has just a small influence on key voter groups and fails to have a lasting effect on voters’ decisions. Devine and Kopko said research shows having a vice presidential candidate on the ticket from a state the presidential candidate wasn’t expected to win did little to change that outcome.
In an example of this point, Vice President Kamala Harris has done little to move the needle on Biden’s popularity with minority groups. Despite being the first black female vice president, she failed to draw more support from the black community for Biden. And currently, though he still holds more support from the black community than Trump, Biden is losing ground with black voters. Trump’s share of the black vote is now creeping into the double digits.
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That’s not to say that a candidate’s choice for vice president doesn’t matter because it does, the authors say. Instead, it affects voters’ perception of the presidential candidate’s “leadership skills, trustworthiness, and competence.” The authors suggest that a candidate’s choice should be based on who would make the best president rather than pandering to a particular voting bloc.
A Republican National Committee event hosted at Mar-a-Lago last Saturday was a chance for Trump’s top contenders to gush over and convince the former president why they would be the best fit for vice president. Those in attendance included Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who may have fallen out of the running after sharing in her book that she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog Cricket.
