The Problem With Donald Trump’s VP Theory

Vice-presidential candidates are highly scrutinized, but Donald Trump recently said that they have no impact on a race. Is he right?

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The VP Effect

“Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact,” Donald Trump declared onstage Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention. This was a bizarre thing for a candidate to say when asked whether his running mate would be ready to serve as president if needed. Although it’s true that vice-presidential nominees alone don’t tend to determine the outcome of elections, the reality is more complicated than Trump suggests.

“Even if the impact of the vice-presidential candidates is marginal, many of our elections are decided at the margins,” Joel Goldstein, a professor emeritus at Saint Louis University and the author of The White House Vice Presidency, told me. People usually don’t vote for someone just because they like their running mate, but selecting a running mate is among the first significant presidential acts a candidate makes—and it tells voters a great deal about the candidate’s leadership style and strategy. A solid decision can strengthen how voters view the person leading the ticket (when Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, in 2008, voters may have seen that as a sign that Obama would surround himself with experienced politicians, Goldstein said), and an unpopular one can make them look weaker (the Sarah Palin choice quickly became a liability for John McCain). “What the pick actually tells you is more about the candidate themselves: their judgment, their relationship with someone else,” my colleague Elaine Godfrey, who has covered the veepstakes, explained.

People tend to over-index on how much a vice-presidential pick who appeals to certain groups can tilt a race, Christopher Devine, an associate professor at the University of Dayton and a co-author of Do Running Mates Matter?, told me. By and large, Devine and his co-author, Kyle Kopko, have not found clear evidence that a running mate’s “home-state advantage” or demographic appeal play a decisive role in whom people vote for. One exception was the 2020 election, when, Devine and Kopko observed, Vice President Kamala Harris likely delivered Democrats a small number of additional votes among Black, women, and Black women voters. But they saw no proof that Mike Pence actually pulled in evangelicals in 2016—though Devine noted that some Republicans reluctant to support Trump pointed to Pence, a more established and traditional politician, as a way to save face when they voted for him anyway.

For the Democratic ticket, Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday. She is reportedly eyeing swing-state politicians such as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Choosing a centrist from a purple state could help soften perceptions of Harris as a progressive, but it would not guarantee that a swing state such as Pennsylvania is in the bag for Democrats, Devine argued.

Meanwhile, the Republican ticket has been deluged with negative press over its VP pick. Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio broke records as the least-liked nonincumbent vice-presidential candidate coming out of their party’s convention since 1980, according to CNN’s Harry Enten. Vance’s past comments denigrating “childless cat ladies” and criticizing Trump as “cultural heroin” in a 2016 essay for this magazine have followed him on the trail. If some voters end up thinking that Vance—who has minimal experience on the national stage and has served less than two years in elected office—is not up for the job, Trump’s credibility could sink in their eyes. Why pick him, they might wonder, when more qualified Republicans were available? That question may be on voters’ minds given the other crucial role of the vice president: taking over as successor if the president dies or is unable to serve while in office—a situation that has become especially relevant in recent elections (Trump would be the oldest president elected in history).

For all of Vance’s weaknesses, Trump is still not likely to drop him from the ticket, Goldstein said. “For Trump to replace him would be an acknowledgement of making a bad decision,” he explained—something Trump may be loath to admit (even if he did make the choice before Biden dropped out). If Vance’s performance doesn’t improve, Goldstein predicted that Trump’s campaign will more likely try to keep Vance out of view by sending him to lower-profile media appearances and limiting his public events. “It’s harder nowadays to bury or hide a running mate,” Goldstein said. But the Trump team could try.

A vice-presidential nominee’s main function is to support a presidential candidate—and to avoid bringing them down. VPs don’t always get credit when they boost the energy and appeal of the ticket, but if they are a drag or a liability, all eyes are on them. It’s like what my high-school drama club used to say about the stage crew: People don’t tend to notice when they do a good job, but if they mess up, everyone pays attention.

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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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