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It's good to be back from vacation. I went to FDR's summer home in New Brunswick.
one of FDR's descendants was there and I overheard him talking to his lady companion about Kamala Harris. What was he telling his lady companion? Yeah, I'm still stuck on lady companion. Sorry, do you mean queen consort? Oh, yo, I don't remember exactly what it was. Of course. I'm sure. Of course. What do we pay you for?
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyPolitics podcast. I'm Galen Druk. Vice President Harris has been the expected Democratic nominee for just a week, and already she's just a week or so away from announcing her own running mate. The DNC is planning to hold a virtual roll call vote to nominate Harris by August 7th, which is also the expected deadline to announce that VP pick.
To get a better sense of some of the contenders for the slot, you guessed it, we're going to do a draft. So some of the top contenders at the moment include Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
The list goes on. There's some business leaders, some non-politicians in the mix, and some other politicians that I haven't mentioned that we will get to in this draft. So here with me to do it all is senior researcher Mary Radcliffe. Welcome to the podcast, Mary. Hey, Galen.
Also here with us is ABC politics reporter Brittany Shepard. Welcome, Brittany. Happy to be back. Ahoy there. So glad to have you. And also here with us, back from vacation, is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Nice of you to stop by. Hey, Galen. Did anything happen while I was gone?
Where were you when you heard the news and what was your first thought? So I was in Canada and... Wow, truly not a patriot. Right, exactly. Wasn't even in America for the news. Because I was traveling abroad, I didn't want to pay for like an international phone plan. So I had my phone off like on airplane mode. And so I only hopped on Wi-Fi like occasionally. And so I was literally at
a vineyard in Nova Scotia and they had Wi-Fi and I hopped on and I was like, oh, I guess I should see what happened. And then like all of a sudden I have like 50 notifications and like the New York Times push alert about it. And I'm like, oh,
Oh, my God, this actually happened. And I think that was the thing that shocked me. And then just kind of like looking up and then seeing like a lovely, lush valley with a view of the Bay of Fundy and the perfect weather and a wine glass in front of me and everything there was quiet. And then on my phone was just like spitting chaos at me. I think that was the weirdest part of it all.
So who's going to win now that we have a new race? Who's going to win? I can say I can tell you after a week of reporting in Canada, I don't like Justin Trudeau's can't chances. No, I made this joke. I was like, well, like, you know, nothing has changed for me. I'm still in a country with an unpopular liberal leader who who is running for reelection, probably against his better judgment. Oh, harsh, harsh, harsh.
Brittany, how's it going? It's going great. I'm living the dream. How are you? I'm good. We spent a long week in Milwaukee together at the Republican National Convention, which brings me to before we get to the snake. Don't worry, listeners, we'll get there. But J.D. Vance. Yeah. So he's got a lot of coverage in the time since he was selected on that Monday. And
You know, at FiveThirtyEight, we're somewhat measured about like how much vice presidential picks actually matter. Does it seem like J.D. Vance is, quote unquote, mattering? Well, he's mattering in the fact that all of the earned media he's getting around his campaign is negative and explanatory about things he did or did not say. We could talk about is it a couch gate or is it a couch gauzy? Oh, my God. You took it there, Brittany. The fact.
that there has to be discussions about that. There has to be so much walking back about what he has or hasn't said about women, chowless cat ladies. He's talking about white supremacist attacks on his wife, Usha Vance, and has to say, well, I know she's not a white woman, but
So much of this has to be his own foot in his mouth and not enough time. If you're Donald Trump saying, here's why I love Donald Trump. Here's why Donald Trump should be president and being the attack dog that J.D. Vance was kind of central casted to be. VP picks matter, at least Vance matters in how effective or ineffective he is as a messenger for the cause.
Yeah, and he's after his introduction to the national stage, he starts with an underwater favorability rating, which is very unusual for this kind of situation, right? Like usually when you've only been introduced with like a positive speech at the conventions, VP candidates typically start above water. And that's not the case for Vance, for whatever that's worth. It might not be worth much. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I guess the question is then, do we actually think that this drags down
Trump. You know, it's hard to connect all the dots. And it's like, okay, so negative earned media for X amount of weeks, what's the opportunity cost of that versus something else. But oftentimes, when we talk about potentially bad VP picks, Sarah Palin comes to the top of the conversation. And the research at the time suggested that the most damaging part of Palin as
as a choice was not that people didn't like her and so they weren't going to vote for the ticket. It was that they thought John McCain was a poor decision maker because he had chosen her. Therefore, their sort of approval ratings of him, they saw him less positively and that that was a potentially knock-on effect electorally of picking her.
Palin. I wonder if in this scenario, Trump is so well defined that whether or not you like Vance or whether you think that Vance puts his foot in his mouth is very little compared to how you might feel about Trump.
Well, I think if you're someone who's on the fence, maybe a suburban woman who for some reason just abandoned Biden or, you know, is more centrist or conservative leaning and we're like, OK, well, maybe if I like his VP pick, I'll go in. Maybe now they're out. Yeah. I mean, people can tell themselves that.
that they're making their decision based on that. But I think the number of people who are making their decision based on VP picks is really negligible. And as Galen said, the research backed this up. Even in 2008, that is the example that everybody points to with Sarah Palin. I think a lot of people forget that
John McCain was already losing. Like, it was a bad time to be a Republican in 2008, which was already unpopular. Like, McCain was always the underdog in that situation. The pick of Sarah Palin was to kind of shake things up because she was basically out of nowhere and it was basically a high risk, high reward situation. And the risk is what ended up happening. But the idea that it cost McCain the election, I think, is certainly an exaggeration.
To Britt's point, you know, Donald Trump has to convince a bunch of people who don't like him to vote for him anyways. I mean, that was the case for Joe Biden as well. Sort of, you have to see how things will shake out with the change at the top of the ticket. But it
If you're a person who already doesn't like Donald Trump, but was considering voting for him anyway, I don't know that this pick helps with those kinds of voters. I guess I think like to Galen's point, it is about how it reflects on Trump. I don't think he is at the Sarah Palin level of like really like making people reconsider what they think about Trump's judgment. And to Galen's point, maybe that's not even possible at this point.
All right, so we've laid down a few markers for how much VP picks actually matter. I think you can say it's not that they don't matter at all, but they rarely define an election. So understanding that, let's begin our 2024 Democratic VP selection snake draft. I never thought I was going to say those words because there was a VP.
I shouldn't say I never thought I was going to say those words. Nathaniel knows I was an early skeptic. He did. What was it? Like 9.07 on debate night, Galen was like, who's going to be Kamala's VP?
That's only a slight exaggeration. I like that impression. Well, that's a pretty good Galen impression. That was not my Galen impression, to be clear. I do a good Galen. That was just my stressed-out journalist impression. Okay, wait. Don't tap me, Nathaniel. Do it. Okay, so listeners, Galen is going on vacation for the rest of this week. And if there is an emergency podcast, such as a Kamala Harris VP pick, we will have to record without Galen. And then I will do my Galen impression. So sad.
And then, Galen, you can listen to it with the rest of the world. And if when I come back, there hasn't been an emergency podcast, then you still have to do it. Okay, fair enough. All right. So random.org has been tasked with selecting the order for our snake draft because we believe in fairness. The order for today is Nathaniel. Yes.
Then Galen, then Brittany, then Mary. It's a man's world. That's going to be the theme of this draft, actually. White boy summer. It's up. White boy summer. Someone find Chet Hanks. That's what it is. Okay. So without further ado...
We are. And just to clarify here, we are not selecting who we think would be necessarily the strongest VP pick, just who we think the VP pick will be. Nathaniel, take it away.
All right. Well, with the first pick, I'm going to go with Mary's governor, Governor Josh Shapiro. It seems like, and this is based on my highly scientific survey of, not even a survey, perusing of Twitter in the couple of hours since I've been back on vacation, it seems like a lot of the speculation and reporting has focused in on Shapiro. It seems like the shortlist that
that has been reported is three names. I think it was Shapiro, Walls, and somebody else. I'm not even... Wow. So rude to Mark Kelly. It was Mark Kelly. Okay. Sounds good. Josh Shapiro has one really strong advantage, and that's simply the fact that he's from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a very likely tipping point state in this election. The
VP picks generally don't matter or they matter a very little bit. But like one way in which they can matter is they might be worth like one percentage point in the home state of the vice presidential nominee. And that's Pennsylvania for Josh Shapiro. And like one percentage point could make the difference in an election that is going to be close.
apart from that you have the fact that you know he is a popular governor he fixed the bridge in philadelphia very famously that was really good for kind of his reputation both in the state and nationally he has been able to work with republicans in the legislature he was already kind of seen as one of these rising stars in the democratic party he was the state attorney general before he was governor so he's got a strong resume he's only been governor for two years i guess like really a year
and change because he took off as an early 2023, which could be a ding against him. But I think generally experience is is not very hot right now. So I'm not sure that they're really going to hold that against him in the end. Experience not hot. Pennsylvania hot. It is very hot here. I will tell you that it's like 90 degrees.
i mean i guess one thing to think about with shapiro um together with our colleague cooper burton we wrote about this last week some of the top contenders one thing to think about with shapiro is he is a little idiosyncratic with some of his views within the democratic party so he for example supports school vouchers because of pennsylvania he's been a little softer on some environmental issues including fracking so
Maybe these things are a feature and not a bug, but there may be some policy disagreements between Shapiro and Harris that would have to be ironed out. I mean, also, he has a bit of a slickness I think Gavin Newsom also suffers from or is a boon depending on who you're asking. But like as the optics narrative girly here in the chat, like I don't really think he's
He balances. Hey, we know you like data too. Closet nerd. Yeah, it's true. It's true. But I don't tell other people that. But frankly, I just feel like he has, I think detractors would say smarmy energy that I also think that was lobbied against Gavin Newsom of being too slick for their own good, too much of an operator. And he's totally charismatic on the upshot. And you don't want someone who's more charismatic than Harris that overshoots her.
If we're just trying to find reasons to nitpick, and I think that that is a legitimate narrative vulnerability as news companies are going to be working every minute to fill air, to talk about why these people are good and bad, I think that those might come up too. Those might percolate.
Okay, so I am up next and I will be choosing surprise surprise Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona. So while Harris has been enjoying her brat summer for the past week, I think that will fade and pivot to something more of like a moderate autumn, a law and order autumn, a median voter fall, if you will. Um,
And I think that Senator Mark Kelly is probably the best pick to help make that pivot. Even though VP picks don't necessarily matter that much, the way that they do matter is how they reflect on you. Harris struggles right now with perceptions of her being very liberal for several reasons. One, she has literally taken very liberal policy positions in the 2020 Democratic primary. On
On top of that, she is a Black woman from California. And we know from social science research that both candidates of color and women are perceived as more liberal than they actually even are because of preconceived notions about their politics.
Now, I know a lot of people don't believe in median voter theorem anymore or they think it's all about turnout, but I don't actually think there's good evidence to to support that at all. And we have lots and lots of examples of the candidate who's seen as sort of more moderate or even just more normal, ultimately winning, especially, especially a national presidential election.
election. And so I think we are going to see Harris herself pivot on a lot of the issues. But I think also, to the extent that who you pick reflects on who you are yourself as a presidential nominee, Kelly helps. So for one example, which I think is perhaps Democrats actual biggest vulnerability is he has broken pretty clearly with Democrats on the border, and basically called the way that Biden went about it dumb.
If you look at the polling, just Americans don't agree with Democrats on the border. I think in general, they don't know. Americans, by and large, don't know what Democrats believe about the border. And in the absence of any clearly defined policy that resembles law and order, they just assume that Republicans are right when they define them as not caring. And I think that is a really big vulnerability that Kelly helps shore up.
We already know from limited polling that Harris does better in the Sun Belt based on her improved polling with younger voters and voters of color. And so trying to double down on that, especially if you're worried about your path through the upper Midwest, you want to have as many options as possible. Also, from her first political ad, it seems like she wants to talk about gun violence and who's
And who better to talk about than the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was shot by a constituent in the head to talk about both the corrosiveness of political violence and political animosity, but also just the fear that Americans live with surrounding gun violence.
I have gotten this far, talked about this many reasons to pick Mark Kelly without even mentioning that he is an astronaut. And we have never crunched these numbers, but I think there have been some rumblings in the background that...
astronaut is actually, if you were to look at the data, one of the most electable careers that a person can have before entering public life. And just to back that up, Mary, the work that you did with our colleague Cooper suggests that he is the only person under consideration who has a positive relationship
net favorability rating amongst all Americans. All of the people that we're going to talk about are popular amongst Democrats. Mark Kelly is the only one. He's plus two with all Americans. And his name idea is actually pretty high. Relatively speaking. Relatively speaking. Relatively speaking. That's my case for Mark Kelly.
Do you think that the Democrats are going to risk a Senate seat on this? Really? Take back everything I said. Sorry, Galen. I will say, to Galen's credit, there's no more effective person to listen to than Gabby Giffords.
Yes, you get Mark Kelly as a surrogate, but you also get Gabby Gibbons to speak for herself, not Mark Kelly to speak for her. Not to give Ghislaine any more kudos because my pick is based and it's going to be great. But I do think math aside, there are a lot of upsides. And as much anecdotal as this is, I troll on TikTok not during work hours, but after work hours.
And there seems to be some grassroots love of the astronaut guy. I mean, talk to any kid. Remember when you got we were all kids once. What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an astronaut. And we're all our inner childs grow up with us. And I do think that that can't be underestimated. Oh, we did look for astronaut polling, but we couldn't find any. So we're just we're just going to have to operate on the belief that Americans think astronauts are just very cool.
All right, Brittany, take it away. Let's talk about emotions for a second. Let's talk about fear, because Galen brought it up. And I always find, especially when I talk to voters, that fear is such a powerful motivator, whether you're afraid of democracy being lost or you're afraid of your country being taken. And there's a lot of fear surrounding Harris from her own party, from those left of Harris who call her a cop.
who thinks she's actually not progressive enough, to those in the center who think she, because of her record, is actually too progressive. Who is best to assuage fears but a high school teacher and a football coach? Ladies and gentlemen. I knew we were getting to a really solid punchline. Of course. Let me introduce to you Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
He is a veteran, served in the National Guard for over 20 years. He is a hunter. He is a gun owner who was donated to by the NRA for years, but after the Vegas shooting, donated every single dime he got from the NRA back to charity. And we continue. He is a high school football coach, which under his tutelage that
team won their first state championships. We got that Friday Night Lights constituency all locked up. He's a red district Dem, the only Democrat to represent his district in the House since 2006. He still has a stalwart progressive thinking. If you're somebody who thinks Kamala is a cop, look at his record as governor, you know, free school lunches. Who doesn't love free school lunches?
who is able to be progressive on LGBTQIA rights, started the GSA in the 90s when he was a social studies teacher. You look up central casting for the kind of person who could stand next to Harris. He's an effective messenger. He's one of the Republicans are weird thing that's been reverberating all around. He kind of just looks like your uncle.
Right? So he has the charisma and kind of every man-ism that I think there are people who have identity politics-based fears for Harris, whether founded or unfounded, can do, okay, that's like my white uncle who's coming to Thanksgiving dinner. He's only a year or two older than Harris, right? But has a different kind of presentation. And he has union backing, shocker, something that Mark Kelly does not have with Mark Kelly's records on whether or not he supports the union. So like,
Yeah. His only vulnerability is the fact that not a lot of people know him. So there's like not really any polling to see if people will like him or not. But he is really, really taking advantage of this introductory period. He's on cable news every two seconds. I look up at the TVs here in the office, he's on doing other hits. That's kind of my elevator pitch for Walls. So Mary, we're operating here in a data-free universe a little bit because looking at the piece that you wrote up,
There's approval data for all of these guys. And then you get to Tim Walz and it just says not applicable. What's going on? To be fair, this piece was written last week and we have had some new polling since then. So in the Ipsos ABC News poll that came out yesterday, they did ask Tim Walz's favorability, but his name ID was only 13 percent. So I don't know how much we can take from that.
Probably nothing. He was underwater by a point, but with name ID of 13%. I don't... That doesn't mean anything. At the end of the day, in Mary and Cooper's article, like, most of these potential picks with the overall universe were, like, pretty evenly divided with, like...
most people the majority of people not having heard of them in most cases there are a couple of exceptions like Buddha judge but like I don't think that should be a consideration for the Harris campaign because there are so many people who are gonna learn about who these people are which means there's room to fill up that number on either side so like for example right now with JD Vance it looks like most people who are learning about him are getting a negative impression but the hope for Harris and her VP pick would be that most people who learn about him would get a favorable impression so like
There's just a lot of variation. There's a lot of room to grow for these candidates, all of them. Yeah, I totally agree with that. The other point I would say in Tim Walz's favor that Britt didn't mention is he's currently the head of the DGA. Democratic Governors Association. Thank you. He's got those connections needed to bring in some cash for the Harris campaign, which could be really valuable. My negative on Tim Walz is he really gives me Tim Kaine vibes. See, I disagree. Just very Tim Kaine vibes. Why is that bad? Yeah, well, I...
I'm going to push. Well, I want to hear your reasoning, but I also have that I thought about this line of attack and I have a counter. I don't know. I think in 2016, Tim Kaine was just kind of I don't have any real impression of him at all other than just the guy who was on the ticket to that. I think Walls is a ton of charisma. I mean, just look at his
One media hit talking about how Republicans are quote unquote weird. That's like kind of the running parlance that the Dems are using right now to like moderate success. If you count like social media impressions as any kind of real metric of how these things are moving through the grassroots. I mean, he's going to be funny. He's going to be folksy. Like I have the
Tim Kaine is like the anti-aura to speak in Gen Z Barlance, right? Like he kind of had no impression. You're going to have to explain that. His aura points were negative. No, I mean, the thinking that he kind of was an avatar, Tim Kaine, for people to kind of
project whatever their beliefs were on him, which I think Hillary Clinton's campaign thought was a good thing because he was kind of neutral. He was the cream to the coffee, let's say. But Tim Walz is like, I think in his mind, adding a little bit of spice. And to that point, right, rather than, you know, as I was saying, you do want to try to create more pathways to victory for yourself in pursuing the Sun Belt. But it still does look like
the northern battleground states are going to be the most competitive. And so you really do want to shore yourself up there as well. Okay, Mary, take it away. And I have two, right? Yeah, you get two picks.
Okay, for my first pick, I am going to take North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. Roy Cooper and Kamala Harris have known each other for a really long time. They were attorneys general at the same time, so they've been involved professionally for a long time, but also the reporting is that they're friends. Mm-hmm.
You know, Kamala Harris likes Roy Cooper. She's been to North Carolina already seven times this year. She's appeared alongside Roy Cooper at least three times, which is a lot considering how many states the Harris campaign is going to have to be contesting.
One of the reasons that I like Roy Cooper in particular here is that if you look at the polling data, whatever the limited polling data we have since Biden dropped out of the race, it looks like with a little work, Kamala Harris may not need a VP that can help her shore up the blue wall states in the upper Midwest. She's pretty close already on her own. And so if the campaign can put in the work and do the persuasion,
She may be able to win those states without the boost. She's already slightly ahead on average in Wisconsin and down by less than one and a half points in Michigan and Pennsylvania in the last week's worth of data. So there's opportunity already for her in the upper Midwest. If the Democratic Party can put North Carolina back into play, that maybe helps a lot.
Democrats won North Carolina in 2008, and they've lost it in the presidential election since then, but by less than four points in each one of those elections. Trump won it in 2020 by less than one and a half points. And while Trump was busy winning the state, Roy Cooper, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was also winning the state.
So he may be able to put those electoral votes on the table and possibly also help in other states in the region, particularly I'm thinking about Georgia.
So that's my case, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. Also, can someone settle this? I've heard Cooper and Cupper. Okay, yeah. So this is actually really interesting. He pronounces his name Cupper because he is from eastern North Carolina where they have this like affect. So like, have you ever met somebody who says like root beer instead of root beer? Oh, I have. Right. So it's like that.
So that's how he presumably he says root beer that way. And so that's how he pronounces his name. And so the question is, is this just a regional pronunciation thing? Or because he says, hi, my name is Roy Cupper. This is how you pronounce my name, Cupper. And he like had a press conference with a reporter where he said, you're saying it wrong. My name is pronounced Cupper. Is that actually the correct pronunciation? Even for those of us who say root beer? I don't know. I've heard it both ways. I feel like.
We'll defer to Cupper, maybe? Yeah, I think that's probably correct. And my apologies, Governor Cupper, for mispronouncing your name. I don't know. As somebody with a weird name, I say you give people grace. And as long as they're voting for you, and as long as they're voting for you, you accept how they say things. And to Mary's point, I do think the friendship matters more than I think people might think, given that there was so much talk
From last cycle, if you guys remember, about Harris essentially calling Biden racist or at least friends with racists during the busing when that little girl was mean moment. And so much consternation of like, does the West Wing like EOB? And what are their teams like?
Removing that as an element, again, is just one less distraction going forward. And I think having a ticket that's very unified and there's not even gossip whispers of being like, "Oh, do they secretly hate each other? What's the real relation?" Especially, we're talking about a woman candidate, it will come up. People are automatically going to think she's catty. They're automatically going to think that there's an underhanded element here. Those storylines definitely existed during this cycle from last to now.
So I do think that kind of takes that off the board or at least attempts to take it off the board, which is not nothing. Yeah. And I think Cupper is also older than most of the other candidates under consideration. So I don't think there will be the same kind of worry that he's trying to, like, build up his own national ambition at the expense of other members of the party. Well, that's what they said about Biden. Yeah.
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Okay, so we have four picks so far. I think we've probably chosen the most conventional four. For our second round, we're going to move significantly faster. Feel free to choose some silly picks as well. But Mary, we're still back to you. So go for it.
I will take Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. He's certainly the most well-known of the possible picks. He's a wonderful communicator. He's the only person on this list that I think regularly goes on conservative media and is able to make the Democratic case known.
in less friendly territory, shall we say. And despite the fact that he has higher name ID and higher profile, he's he's barely underwater in terms of favorability, which means, you know, the American people know who he is. They've been seeing him for a long time and he hasn't rubbed them the wrong way yet. Yeah, I don't I don't really see Buttigieg. There were those reports that he and Harris didn't quite get along. So he's kind of the anti-cupper in that regard. He
He's also gay, which I think there will be a lot of Democrats who are iffy about putting two boundary breaking candidates on on the ticket. I think they'll probably want to go with the safe pick. I think the fact that everyone we've discussed so far is a white man and everyone until Buttigieg has been straight is not a coincidence. So, yeah, I'm not sure I see him as the pick, but we'll see. All right, Brittany, up next. I'm going to come at you with a hot take, but it's a it's a considered one.
If we're thinking about white men, I have a white man for you. Has strong relationship with Capitol Hill.
knows the in and outer workings of the White House very well. In fact, listen, and has sat in the office himself. I think we pull a veep and point Joe Biden as the vice president. He has the relationships. He can work the phones. The optics matter a lot less. He doesn't have to go out and stump. Harris will do all the stumping for him. He could work the phones from the Oval Office.
I can see the vision and how that works if we're having fun. He already has the address. There's no moving boxes. Okay, I'm really struggling here because the next pick that makes sense for me to pick is somebody who I don't think will ultimately be picked and isn't as strong as some of the more sort of like, oh, like a Wes Moore or like a Gretchen Whitmer or whatever. But I'm just going to go for it. I'll pick Andy Beshear.
the governor of Kentucky. Democrats care about electability. They have said it again and again and again, starting in basically when Trump took office and still to today. And the whole reason we're in this situation is because of an utter freak out about Biden's electability. And so if you want to
shore up your chances, why not pick the second most popular governor in America, second to Phil Scott, the Republican in Vermont? No surprise that, you know, being a cross partisan against the regular color of your state is super helpful and that you can sway the other side and also keep your partisans with you. I think there's a West Wing world in which Harris would be encouraged to
pick basically a Republican and say this election is so important. The whole reason we've reimagined how we're doing this is that this election is so important. Democracy, freedom, the ideals of America are all in the ballot, and therefore we're going to do a unity ticket and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that
were past that point in American politics, at least in this moment. I think there's a future where it maybe exists as well. But in this moment, I think Democrats would be a bit too turned off by that. And so their second best pick is a popular Democrat in a red state who has spent his entire political career campaigning to Republicans and getting them to vote for Democrats.
Yeah, he'd also be a good foil to J.D. Vance being the governor of Kentucky and being from Appalachia and stuff. I don't really know why he seems to have kind of fallen out of favor because I think initially before Biden even dropped out and people were doing premature speculation, a lot of the names were like it was like
Bashir and like Cupper and like, I guess maybe Shapiro, but he doesn't seem to be in the final three that has been reported. And I would be curious why not. I think it's just based on the auditions sort of maybe a little bit less tactful on the in the TV hits on the stump and the like. Yeah, he does seem to not be like as good at talking. Yeah.
Maybe. I mean, to Brittany's point earlier about Walls, like there is like this clear, like kind of explicit campaigning phase. And Tim Walls has done really well and has rocketed from like basically not being on anybody's radar to now being in the top three. And Andy Beshear seems to have failed at that stage. So, yeah.
All right, Nathaniel, who are you picking?
Basically, your only goal is to win. Then you basically pick somebody from one of these handful of very important states. And Gretchen Whitmer is obviously the popular and accomplished governor of one of those states. When people talk about like 2028 contenders or when they used to talk about 2028 contenders, Whitmer was the name that came up a lot.
I think one of the challenges there is that Democrats may be gun-shy to put two women on the ticket. But the other thing I should say is that electorally speaking, Democrats are doing very well with women. One of the areas where they're not doing so well is with men, to be totally blunt. And I think part of the reason they want to put a man on the ticket is just for optics, whatever, whatever it may be. But also, gone are the days of
suburban women being like the quintessential swing voter we've talked about this on the podcast before younger politically disaffected men who don't like trump and like aren't necessarily inclined to vote for republicans but feel like democrats are weird i think that's that's a swing group too that democrats are going to try to appeal to or want to appeal to
All right. Final, final round. One word, third. All right. One word. I'll go with J.B. Pritzker, I guess, because he is the only person who is on the, I think, public shortlist that we haven't named. But I really don't think it's going to be J.B. Pritzker. I think he is way overrated by the online people. He brings those dollar bills. A lot of candidates bring the dollar bills. But I think being like nominating a plutocrat is not...
what Democrats want optically. And he also was like, still, as far as we know, under federal investigation for tax fraud. So that seems like a problem. He's from Illinois. Yeah, right. Comes with the territory. I am going to pick, I want to have fun here. I am going to pick Jon Stewart.
That was mine. Wow. All right. Democrats have gotten a bad rap for being a somewhat joyless political party over the past, you know, in the post Obama era where everything has been sort of very serious and scoldy and unfun. And what better way to bring the fun and joy back to politics than to put a literal comedian on the ticket? I
I don't know, have you seen his work lately? Nathaniel, if you stand in the middle of this podcast and proclaim that whatever has happened historically will always continue happening, you will eventually be wrong because history will prove to not be prologue. Kaelin, we didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. We exist in the context of all that came before us.
Here's the thing, Nathaniel, what we are here envisioning what could be unburdened by what has been. - All right, Brittany, third pick. - Okay, my centrist pilled pick
Is Joe Manchin. Okay. All right. All right. It is centrist belt. Mary? Well, if this is the round that we're having fun with it, I'm going to go with the West Wing fantasy and choose Vermont Governor Phil Scott. Republican Governor of Vermont. Unity ticket. Unity ticket. Unity ticket. Moderate centrist figure. Why not? Why not Scott? Why not Scott? Why not Scott?
We have Nathaniel, Shapira, Whitmer, Pritzker. I have Kelly, Bashir, Stewart. Brittany, you have Waltz, Biden, Manchin. There's some real energy in that trio. It's electric. It's electric. Mary, you have Cooper, Buttigieg. And Scott, listeners, it's up to you. Let us know who you think won and...
we will know before too long who won in reality. So thank you, Mary, Brittany, and Nathaniel. Thanks, Galen. Thanks, Galen. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKinnon and Cameron Trotavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts.538.com. You can also, of course, tweet us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon. ♪