Will vice presidential candidates matter more than presidential?

With the oldest-ever candidates facing off, you may really be voting for the veep

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Put a quarter into the back of a political scientist, he or she will say, “Nobody votes for the vice president. Voters decide based on who becomes president.”

Surely this political science assumption is correct. But in 2024 will “who becomes president” be the vice presidential winner?

There has never been a presidential election like 2024, pitting an incumbent who has been irresponsible with debt and would be 82 years of age when his second term begins, versus a 78-year-old who betrayed his oath of office, openly scorns the Constitution and rambles incoherently about magnets underwater.

As this space noted four months ago, more than half of registered Democrats think Biden should not be running again, more than a third of registered Republicans think Trump should not be running again. Not a lot of good options.

Because of age, both contenders’ veep-mates have an above-average chance of being awarded the presidency. Voters may be scrutinizing the vice presidential candidates as never before.

In addition, recent presidential elections suggest that for veep choices, “ticket balancing” has declined in importance, as has “bringing a state to the ticket,” meaning the vice presidential candidate should be from an important state the presidential candidate might not otherwise carry. (More on all these in a moment.)

Here is a Politico poll from a week ago suggesting 54 percent of voters have an unfavorable reaction to the Biden-Harris ticket. Polls can be wrong – but for a sitting president and vice president at a moment unemployment and gas prices are low, this number is just dreadful.

We may all wish the choice was not Trump versus Biden. But absent a health emergency, that ship has sailed. Vice presidential candidates are still in flux.

So who will their running mates be?

Trump has not yet named a vice presidential partner. Biden has Kamala Harris, and could change that. Harris’s negatives are extensive, perhaps a reason new polls show Trump in a landslide over Biden in Iowa. Iowa is a purple state that went for Trump in 2020 and 2016 after going for Obama in 2012 and 2008. That Biden-Harris is polling so poorly in Iowa ought to cause loud klaxons to sound at the Democratic National Committee.  

Voters know a ballot for Biden could become a ballot for Harris, and voters don’t seem the least bit happy about this.