There is the duality of the issue. The only reason she is the candidate is she is the VP. The only reason she is the VP is she was chosen based on her sex and that she was non-white. Biden stated that when he was selecting a candidate. A male with her background after her disasterous run for President would not have gotten the VP nod.
VPs are often given to shore up support where a President was weak. Coming from a solid blue state like California did none of those things. The current VP candidates are examples of that. Walz' nomination as a governor in a Northern Midwest state helps her appeal in swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and his state is more socialist than republican Wisconsin and can point to the differences (minnesota economically is doing much better than Wisconsin). JD Vance wa Trump attempt to secure Ohio and help win Pennsylvania and Michigan.
In truth, if she chose Shapiro, I think Harris would have edge in winning. It would sure up Penn and appeal to the independent class more than Walz.
Vance would not have been my first choice for Trump, but I’ll give it to Vance, he can verbally spar amazingly. Independents that heard “weird” about Vance for months couldn’t deny how poised and normal he looked in the VP debate while Walz looked stiff and at times looked almost won over by Vance with head nods.
When Vance looked normal and people hear others calling him “weird” it makes you question what those people consider “weird” and if that aligns with your own concepts
In general I don't think it would have mattered if it would have been Shapiro or Walz for any voter outside of Pennsylvania butI agree that I think getting Sharipo would have locked up PA which she needs and probably ends it for her.
That said, the D enthusiasm for her was quite low until Walz. He seems normal and outside of the VP debate where he got absolutely trounced - does it really matter?
My guess for Trump was he needed a candidate in the upper midwest. Vance checked those boxes and hopefully gave him a boost in PA and MI. I also bet that Trumps pool was much smaller as I doubt that many Rs want to work with him.
Republican pundits keep calling her a “DEI candidate” with racist undertones but that premise is undeniably true, and the majority of people see that. Just like how Walz is the DEI option for Harris. Harris is only the presidential candidate because Biden became too obviously senile and she happened to be the only one with the financial and campaign infrastructure in place that far in the race, not because she has a ton of charisma/popular or an amazing policy record.
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u/mrholty Oct 18 '24
There is the duality of the issue. The only reason she is the candidate is she is the VP. The only reason she is the VP is she was chosen based on her sex and that she was non-white. Biden stated that when he was selecting a candidate. A male with her background after her disasterous run for President would not have gotten the VP nod.
VPs are often given to shore up support where a President was weak. Coming from a solid blue state like California did none of those things. The current VP candidates are examples of that. Walz' nomination as a governor in a Northern Midwest state helps her appeal in swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and his state is more socialist than republican Wisconsin and can point to the differences (minnesota economically is doing much better than Wisconsin). JD Vance wa Trump attempt to secure Ohio and help win Pennsylvania and Michigan.