What this election proves about the importance of running mates and vice presidents

(CNN) — One major lesson from Vice President Kamala Harris’ sudden ascension to be the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is that running mates matter.

Backup quarterbacks need to be ready for big games, and vice presidents need to be ready for the Oval Office, as this election year has proven on both sides of the political aisle.

Former President Donald Trump was nearly killed by a would-be assassin before he officially selected Sen. JD Vance. Harris is set to be Democrats’ consensus nominee only because President Joe Biden stepped aside after questions were raised about his ability to do the job for four more years.

It’s a point not lost on some Republicans who are second-guessing Trump’s selection of Vance and Democrats who are anticipating Harris’ pick any day.

“Veepstakes,” as the informal selection process is frequently called, can feel irrelevant and overwrought as pundits pick apart the attributes and drawbacks of potential vice presidents. Trump compared the process to his old reality show, “The Apprentice,” in which he picked the best person to hire.

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere reports the Harris campaign plans to hold up Trump’s pick of Vance as evidence that the former president is not good at hiring people and that Vance is unqualified to be president.

Harris’ selection of a running mate – the first major decision of her unexpected campaign – is expected before planned joint appearances next week and in time for Democrats to include the potential veep’s name when delegates officially select the Democratic ticket during the first week of August.

Read CNN’s latest report on the process.

An awkward introduction to voters

Trump picked Vance on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July at the urging of one of his sons and to carry his MAGA movement into the future. Old-school Republicans were immediately alarmed because the pick also signaled a new direction for the GOP, at least rhetorically, on issues from organized labor to foreign policy.

The public’s introduction to Vance, the young senator from Ohio – he turns 40 in early August – who first became famous for writing a by-the-bootstraps memoir of his path to success, has been rocky.

Vance’s past comments about women could hurt Republicans’ chances with a key voting bloc. His past opposition to Trump, before a conversion to a MAGA true believer, makes Vance now seem like an opportunist.

Sofia Nelson, a Yale Law School classmate of Vance’s who now works as a public defender in Detroit, released a trove of old emails and text messages with Vance and argued he is a “chameleon” who has changed his views on “literally every imaginable issue.”

A large portion of the public still has either not heard of Vance or has no opinion of him, according to a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS and released last week – but a larger portion of registered voters in the poll had an unfavorable view of him than a favorable one. And that was before Vance’s previous comments, such as those uncovered by CNN’s KFile, were reported.

Trump, not usually one to back away from a controversial position, appeared to modulate Vance’s description of Democrats like Harris as “childless cat ladies” during an appearance on Fox News.

“You know, you don’t meet the right person, or you don’t meet any person. But you’re just as good, in many cases, a lot better than a person that’s in a family situation,” Trump said.

Vance also undercut Trump’s public argument that Harris is a “worse” candidate than Biden. In audio obtained by The Washington Post, Vance can be heard admitting that Harris lacks some of the baggage that was dragging Biden down and that her rise was a “sucker punch.”

What will Harris do and when will she do it?

Harris’ pick could come within days, according to CNN’s MJ Lee and Jeff Zeleny, who write that the pool of candidates has shrunk by one.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper made sense for Harris on paper as a Democratic governor who won twice in a red state. But at 67, he is older than Harris and would complicate Democrats’ goal of presenting a younger ticket as a contrast to Trump.

There are similar advantages and drawbacks for each of the people reportedly on Harris’ list.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly has the glittering resume of a former astronaut and is married to Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman turned activist after she was shot at a political event. But he lacks executive experience and might not help Harris in the “blue wall” states – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – that most strategists see as Democrats’ most likely path to the White House.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro could help Harris in Pennsylvania, but he is relatively unknown.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg may be Democrats’ most effective communicator in his frequent appearances on Fox News, but he is barely older than Vance.

Read more about potential running mates from CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Karl de Vries and Eric Bradner.

Democrats frequently view the decision as a way to balance their ticket. Barack Obama, the first Black president, may have tried to appeal to working-class, White voters when he picked Biden, the old-school senator born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Biden went on to pick Harris, the first woman of color to be on a national party’s presidential ticket.

She now seems to be focused on a list of relatively moderate, White, male Democrats as she runs to be the country’s first female president.

A decision that can backfire

Running mates rarely seem to help presidential candidates, but recent history shows they can hurt them – particularly when it comes to Republican picks.

In 2008, John McCain picked then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin almost on a whim, hoping for a campaign reset but instead getting a gaffe-prone political neophyte who projected unpreparedness. This is now the textbook example of a flawed running mate pick, although Palin’s contribution to McCain’s ultimate loss has probably been overstated.

In 2012, Mitt Romney picked then-Rep. Paul Ryan, a swing state rising star with good looks and a wonkish vibe. But Ryan’s signature policy attribute, his budget proposal aimed at controlling government spending, may have ultimately hurt Romney’s campaign.

In 2016, Trump picked then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who didn’t seem to affect the race and played the part of loyal sidekick – right up until the moment in 2020 when he refused to reject electoral votes, endangering his own life and forever moving to Trump’s bad side.

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