As Joe Biden formally begins his vice-presidential selection process, he needs to find a running mate who strengthens the Democratic ticket in the areas where he is weakest. The nomination contest has highlighted three sizable shortcomings that imperil his quest to defeat President Trump.
First, he has failed to generate nearly any interest, let alone meaningful support, among young people in the presidential primaries. Second, he has consistently lost the Latino vote. And third, he suffers from a well-documented enthusiasm gap that could undermine his candidacy in the same way that Hillary Clinton failed to generate voter excitement, resulting in a drop in voter turnout among key constituencies, particularly African-Americans, whose diminished motivation and engagement resulted in the collapse of the Democratic “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Biden’s minuscule levels of support among voters 18 to 29 — the electoral engine of Bernie Sanders’s campaign — has been alarming. In Michigan, a state he won handily over Mr. Sanders, Mr. Biden still secured only 19 percent of the youth vote. Even in South Carolina, the place that transformed the Biden candidacy, he still lost the under-30 vote to Mr. Sanders by 17 points, a margin that was twice as bad as Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 deficit against the same opponent in the same state.
Of note — and what should be of great concern to the Biden team — is that this weakness with young voters transcends racial lines. A veritable rainbow coalition of young voters have regularly rejected the former vice president in state after state. In November, this weakness will loom large as Generation Z voters, those 18 to 24 years old, will make up twice the percentage of all voters that they did in 2016.
A second priority needs to be targeting Latinos, who are now the largest nonwhite group in America and whose swelling population numbers bolster Democratic prospects in emerging swing states like Arizona and Texas, as well as closely fought Florida. Even in the key Midwestern states, there are hundreds of thousands of Latino voters who could tip the balance in a close contest. In the presidential primaries, Mr. Biden has lost the Latino vote to Mr. Sanders in every state.
The Democrats’ biggest challenge lies in the lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Biden among voters, even those who generally support him. The enthusiasm problem is highly problematic across the board — recent polls show Mr. Trump’s supporters are far more enthusiastic than Mr. Biden’s — but it is acutely dangerous with African-Americans, the most reliably Democratic voters.
The greatest potential risk is the same kind of overconfidence and complacency regarding black voters that doomed Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. She dominated among black voters in her primary contest against Mr. Sanders and consequently felt secure enough in her standing with African-Americans that she chose to present an all-white Democratic ticket. The results were cataclysmic, with black voter turnout falling off a cliff and dropping to a 16-year low, enabling Mr. Trump to prevail in critical Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College.
There is no question that Mr. Biden will win an overwhelming percentage of those African-Americans who cast ballots. But more important, victory or defeat will depend on what percentage of eligible black voters actually turn out.
His search committee is likely to conduct polling designed to determine how particular demographic groups will respond to his potential political partners. At best, polling is predictive, offering educated guesses. However, the analysis need not be left to conjecture: Many of the possible picks have run in statewide elections, the data from which offer actual evidence of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the prospects.
All that Mr. Biden has said on the subject is that he intends to name a woman as his running mate.
Of the people most often mentioned as being on the vice-presidential short list, Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have all run in statewide elections in which exit polls were conducted. That data offers the chance for an apples-to-apples comparison of relative electoral strength with the key demographic groups needed to strengthen the Democratic ticket.
A close examination of the electoral track records of the possible partners shows that Ms. Abrams best offers what Mr. Biden most needs. In terms of success with young people, Barack Obama’s political popularity is unquestioned, and therefore his support levels among that demographic offer a valuable measuring stick. Of the potential nominees, only Ms. Abrams outperformed Mr. Obama in her state, winning the 18-to-29-year-old vote in Georgia by nearly 30 points; Mr. Obama lost that group by three points. Only Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, another common name on potential V.P. lists, equaled Mr. Obama’s performance with young voters in her state. The other contenders for whom there is data underperformed Mr. Obama in their most recent competitive race by significant margins.
The available data on popularity among Latinos is more limited, but in the states that do offer such information — Georgia, California, Michigan and Nevada — Ms. Abrams secured the most Latino support, garnering 62 percent of her state’s Latino vote in 2018. Ms. Cortez Masto, who is herself Latina, was also very strong with that demographic.
It is in the realm of African-American voter enthusiasm that Ms. Abrams is without peer. Not only did she win 93 percent of the black vote in her race for governor — a higher percentage than any of the other potential vice-presidential picks won in their statewide races — but few candidates (if any) in the history of this country have increased black turnout in a statewide election to the extent that Ms. Abrams did in 2018. Black voter turnout jumped 40 percent in Georgia in 2018, an astounding level of strength that not only can bring the Midwestern states back into the Democratic fold but also has the potential to expand the map of competitive states to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas.
Among the other contenders, a recent poll (by Data for Progress for the group Way to Win) found that Ms. Harris ran a close second to Ms. Abrams in terms of support among African-Americans.
Ultimately, Mr. Biden will make a pick based on comfort, fit and fitness for the office, and there is no shortage of talented women he can choose. If he wants to base his decision on the available evidence and proven success in areas where he has failed, then choosing Stacey Abrams is the smartest move.
Steve Phillips (@StevePtweets), the host of the podcast “Democracy in Color With Steve Phillips” and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.”
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
