The Politics of the Veepstakes
Thoughts on past v.p. choices, as we ponder who will debate Kamala Harris in 2024
(This post is the first in a series on the history and politics of the Veepstakes.)
The Politics Behind Vice-Presidential Selections
The speculation is now in full swing: Who will be Donald Trump’s running mate for the 2024 presidential election?
Obviously, it won’t be Mike Pence. Even though Pence stood loyally by Trump’s side for four years, he will now forever be known as the vice president whom MAGA supporters wanted to hang four years ago. Not to mention that Pence isn’t even supporting Trump this time around.
But the fact that Trump did pick Pence to be on the ticket in 2020 is a clue into what the former president was thinking then, and what he might be pondering now.
There is, as we know, a never-ending debate over whether presidential candidates should choose a ticket mate who’d be an ideal governing partner, or someone who provides more political benefit for the general election. But no matter how many studies show that vice-presidential candidates have little effect on elections, the truth is that politics is nearly always part of the equation during the selection process. It’s just not always part of the equation in the way many observers assume, in terms of geographical or ideological balancing.
Rather, the choice of a running mate is more driven by what candidates sense about the political zeitgeist. These days, it’s less traditional ticket balancing and more the politics of the moment that often dictates the choice of a running mate.
In 2000 and 2008, for instance, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden could legitimately be considered governing partners for George W. Bush and Barack Obama. And yet the politics also dictated that voters would be reassured if these nominees had a seasoned partner to balance their own inexperience on the world stage. This made the Cheney and Biden selections work on both a governing and a political level.
Also in 2008, Sarah Palin initially seemed to fit the bill of someone who could infuse youthful energy into the campaign of an older John McCain. It was an obviously political move by a candidate trailing in the polls and was widely seen at the time as a high risk-high reward choice. While it did initially energize the GOP campaign, it later backfired when Palin’s performance on the trail raised questions in voters’ minds about McCain’s judgement.
And in 1992, Bill Clinton went against the grain is choosing Al Gore, who not only had a similar ideology but was also a Southerner and was about the same age as Clinton. There was no ticket balancing at all in this case, and yet it turned out to be a masterstroke because, in the politics of 1992, Clinton was trying to show he was a new generation-type of leader. Gore’s presence reinforced this notion, and the image of the two of them barnstorming the country after their convention gave a rocket boost to their polling numbers.
So there are many ways in which a nominee can lean when making a vice-presidential selection, but the best choices are those who can not only hold their own on the campaign trail but who also best reflect the politics of that year.
With Trump gearing up to decide on his own running mate in the next two to three months, I thought now might be an interesting time to look at how politics drove some other vice presidential selections throughout history, for better or for worse. My plan is to turn this into several posts that look at a few interesting and consequential choices from the 19th century to today.
Many times, the choice of a running mate is almost irrelevant in the end, which makes the Veepstakes much ado about nothing. But then there are those accidents of history when a vice president becomes very important indeed. And if you don’t think so, well, Andrew Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, among others, would like a word.
Which brings us to this year’s race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. In this post, let’s look at the decisions each man made during his first run for the White House, and at the choice facing Trump again this year.
Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris in 2020
President Biden made his selection of Kamala Harris in the summer of 2020. But Biden first promised to nominate a woman as his running mate during a March debate.
Once Biden wrapped up the nomination, initial speculation about the V.P. seemed to put Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the pole position. She had performed well in the primaries, shared Biden’s moderate politics, and was seen as a candidate who could give him a boost in the all-important Upper Midwest. One Republican consultant even suggested Klobuchar was the candidate the GOP feared most. Harris was also on most short lists, along with several others, but after having run a lackluster presidential campaign of her own she was seen as a less formidable possibility.
Two months later, however, the death of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer in Minnesota upended both the nation’s politics and Biden’s vice presidential decision. Among Democrats, pressure was put on Biden to select a person of color as his running mate.
This shrank the list of contenders, particularly when combined with Biden’s pledge to select a woman. Klobuchar was attacked for her past work as a prosecutor in Minneapolis and was soon the object of a lobbying campaign against her candidacy, which led to withdrawing her name from consideration. Other top candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, suddenly had a new strike against them.
In the end, as observers told Politico at the time, there was “no one ideal home run choice.” Harris was the only shortlisted option who was a woman, who had a national following, and who was also a person of color. This isn’t to say she she wouldn’t have emerged as the eventual choice in any case, but her less than stellar presidential campaign had dented her reputation. If the nation’s politics at that moment were tilted in a slightly different direction, the nomination may well have gone to Klobuchar, Whitmer, or someone else entirely.
Trump’s selection of Pence in 2016
Trump in 2016 faced different political considerations. As a newcomer to the national political stage, there was the sense that he should select a partner who had some experience in Washington. But whereas the Democratic base in 2020 pushed Biden towards having a person of color on the ticket, the Republican base in 2016 drove Trump towards a candidate who could also soothe religious voters.
Evangelical leaders are influential in the GOP and they were initially uncomfortable with Trump, unconvinced he shared their concerns on such issues as abortion or LGBTQ rights. But Pence, a devout Christian with a long record of social conservatism, helped reassure evangelicals that Trump would be on their side.
It was important that Pence had experience as a governor and Congressman and had good relationships with Republican leaders. But reports indicated that Trump’s other top VP choices were Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich, and Pence was the only one of these three who also moved the polling needle with religious voters.
Trump in 2024
Fast forward to today, and it seems that Trump no longer needs a partner like Pence. Despite a personal history of decidedly un-Christian behavior, Trump has solid support from the evangelical community because of his persistent backing for their policy agenda and his success in moving the Supreme Court to the right. As one pastor put it: “Christians feel like they are in an existential cultural war between good and evil, and they want a warrior like Donald Trump who can win.”
Now that evangelicals are convinced Trump has their back, the former president has more leeway politically. The need to reassure religious voters doesn’t have to factor quite as much into his running mate decision. In fact, the politics may even push Trump in a different direction this year.
Let’s do a quick check of some names reputed to be on the GOP’s vice-presidential shortlist for 2024: Sens. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama, and Marco Rubio of Florida; Govs. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, among others.
This isn’t a “who is Trump going to pick?” article so I’m not going to go into the pros and cons of each candidate. But you’ll notice something interesting about this list: It’s populated largely by women and persons of color.
Yes, after years of denigrating Democrats for pushing diversity, GOP strategists now seem to believe that having a woman or person of color on their own ticket would be a smart political move for a party that is trying to make inroads with Blacks and Latinos and which is trying to stop the bleeding of suburban women from its coalition. Of course, Kellyanne Conway, apparently with a straight face, did argue in an op-ed in the New York Times that Trump should pick a person of color but that this would not be the same as “identity politics à la the Democrats.”
But even this is not where the story ends this year. Turns out that fate had yet another twist up its sleeve.
Abortion complicates Trump’s choice
You know of course that the Arizona Supreme Court has reinstated an 1864 territorial law that effectively bans all abortions in that state. This happened right after the Florida Supreme Court upheld a six-week ban. Both states are now likely to have prominent referendums on the ballot this fall to protect abortion rights. And well, it also turns out that abortion bans aren’t all that popular with voters.
So now Trump is suddenly trying to temper his position on abortion, to the degree that he might even exclude from his veep shortlist anyone who is from a state with an extreme abortion ban or any candidate who has spoken in favor of such a ban. All to push the impression that he’s a moderate on the issue.
Ironically, Trump is able to do this because he’s already responsible for appointing the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. So, with a wink and a nod, evangelicals are giving him a pass. But trying to moderate his stance now does complicate the choice of a running mate — simply because many GOP candidates are associated either personally or via their state with a more extremist position on abortion.
Two candidates who are seemingly hurt most by this potential new litmus test are Scott and Noem. But one candidate who might emerge somewhat unscathed is Vance, mostly because Ohio voters last year enshrined the right to an abortion in their constitution. Another safe option may be Stefanik, who is from New York. But no one knows how high they were on Trump’s list of favorites.
We won’t know for another couple of months how this all turns out, but it’s another obvious example of how the politics of the moment affects vice-presidential choices.
As noted earlier, there’s something to be said for the knowledge that running mates rarely matter in the bigger picture. Except when they do. And that’s where we’ll turn next. Over the next two or so months I’ll take a look at how politics shaped previous V.P. selections and at a few situations where the choice actually mattered greatly to history. Starting, say, with Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson in 1864. Stay tuned.
(Photo credits: Kamala Harris; Biden-Klobuchar-Harris, and Trump-Pence: all public domain photos via Wikimedia Commons. Question mark by Peggy_Marco on Pixabay.)