Biden’s best choice for VP is …

Oh no, it’s not going to be that easy. I’m going to tell you why, first. By the time you get to the name, you’ll be nodding in agreement.

The Electoral College

First, let’s talk about how this election is going to work. Like all presidential elections, it will not be a popularity contest. The person who wins the most votes will not necessarily be President. Why is that? Because the Electoral College is grossly weighted toward the less populated States. California, for example, gets 55 Electoral votes for 36.8M people, or one Electoral vote per 669,090 people. Wyoming, on the other hands, get a mere 3 Electoral votes, but only has 533,000 people, or one Electoral vote per 177,666 people. A voter in Colorado has almost 4x as much clout as a voter in California.

This isn’t a post to gripe about the EC. It’s reality. But that means a President has to win in the EC, not the popular vote. And everything Joe Biden does between now and November needs to be based upon that premise.

The Landscape

Second, this isn’t going to be a national election. Nobody is going to spend time or money trying to win a solidly Red or Blue State.

Donald Trump goes into the election with 179 Electoral votes in his pocket. He’s going to win:

• Idaho
• Alaska
• Montana
• Wyoming
• Utah
• Arizona
• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Nebraska*
• Kansas
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• Missouri
• Arkansas
• Louisiana
• Kentucky
• Tennessee
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• West Virginia
• South Carolina

Biden is going to win 195 Electoral votes with these:

• Washington
• Oregon
• California
• Minnesota
• Illinois
• New York
• Vermont
• Massachusetts
• Rhode Island
• Connecticut
• New Jersey
• Delaware
• Maryland
• Washington DC

That leaves:

• Nevada
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Iowa
• Wisconsin
• Michigan
• Indiana
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• New Hampshire
• Maine*
• Virginia
• North Carolina
• Georgia
• Florida
• Maine and Nebraska award two Electoral votes to the State’s popular winner, then they’re assigned by congressional district, 2 in Maine and 3 in Nebraska. Trump is likely to win them all in Nebraska, but they’ll almost certainly split, with one going to Trump, in Maine.

So let’s get real, shall we? Let’s talk about those potential “swing states.”

Some people think if Trump picks Stacey Abrams, Georgia will go blue. They’re wrong. She didn’t win the race for Governor and a lot of Republicans in Georgia weren’t that crazy about Kemp. They LOVE Trump.

Iowa and Indiana? Trump beat Clinton by 10 percentage points in Iowa and almost 20 in Indiana. Add another 17 EVs to Trump’s column.

Clinton won New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Biden will, too. Add 37 to Biden’s column.

I’m not even sure Ohio is really still in play, unless there is a wave that makes this entire conversation irrelevant. Put Ohio’s 18 EVs in Trump’s column and hope it goes the other way, if you support Biden.

So let’s talk about where this election is really going to happen.

What happened in 2016?

In 2016, Trump won because he won Florida, and because he won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan by a total of 80,000 votes.

Wisconsin — Trump won 1,405,284 to 1,382,536, a difference of 22,748 votes, and third party candidates took over 149,000 votes.

Pennsylvania — Trump won 2,970,733 to 2,926,441, a difference of 44,292 votes. Third party candidates got 197,000 votes.

Michigan — Trump won Michigan 2,279,543 to 2,268,839, a difference of just 10,704 votes, a number dwarfed by 263,000 third party votes.

Change those three States, and Hillary Clinton would be President.

And then there’s Florida. Florida has 29 Electoral Votes, the biggest purple prize of all. Trump won 4,617,886 to 4,504,975, a difference of 112,911 votes, with 271,000 third party votes.

Thanks for the history lesson, what does it mean for 2020?

Good question. It means this election is going to be fought in just four States, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Here are a couple of facts.

1. Trump cannot win if he doesn’t win Florida. Sure, maybe you can do the math, but if he loses Florida he loses. Period.
2. Trump is going to have an almost inconceivable amount of money to spend, almost certainly well north of $3 BILLION dollars.
3. Trump is going to outperform the polls by several percentage points, because there are people who don’t want to admit they’re going to vote for him.

What does all this mean for Biden’s VP pick? It means he needs to pick somebody who can do two things:

1. Win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin; and
2. Make Trump spend so much money to keep Florida that he has to spend it by tonnage rather than counting it.

Winning Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan

Let me throw some number at you for those three States.

Wisconsin turnout

• 2008–2,983,417 (70.8%)
• 2012–3,068,434 (71.37%)
• 2016–2,976,150 (70.5%)

But that’s not the real story. The real story was in Milwaukee, where 41,006 fewer people voted than in 2012. That, ALONE, is almost two times Trump’s margin of victory in Wisconsin.

And even that’s not the real story. The real story is that the turnout rate among eligible black voters in Wisconsin fell from 74 percent in 2012 to 55.1 percent in 2016.

Here’s the thing — the same is true in Michigan and Pennsylvania, in Detroit and Philadelphia. If Black turnout was anything like it was in 2012, Clinton would have won.

There has been a great deal of talk about Biden’s age, and the possibility that the VP choice will end up President.

The extraordinarily obvious choice for Biden is to pick a Black woman (he already promised he’d pick a woman) as his VP candidate.

But that’s only the first half of the equation.

Florida

Florida has nine different media markets. It’s an incredibly expensive State for advertising. The vote there is always so close that a candidate can’t just spend in Tampa/St. Pete, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando/Daytona Beach, and West Palm Beach/Ft. Pierce. They’ll also have to spend in Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Tallahassee/Thomasville, Panama City, and Gainesville.

A VP candidate who puts Florida into play can drain Trump’s war chest to the point Biden can be competitive nation-wide. Why? Because he absolutely cannot win without winning Florida.

Put a candidate who puts Florida at risk for Trump, and he will have to spend half of his money in that one State, just to stay competitive.

Enough already, who is it?

There is one potential VP candidate who will bring out enthusiastic Black voters, force Trump to spend all of his money in Florida, and who also has executive and national experience.

Val Demings is a two-term Congress Woman from the biggest electoral prize of all, Orlando. She served in the Orlando police department for 27 years, and was the first female Chief of Police in the department’s history. She was one of 7 Democratic impeachment managers in the impeachment of President Trump. Black, female, Florida, law enforcement, executive experience, experience in Congress, and she comes from the dead center of Florida’s “I-4 Corridor,” where the State will be won.

She doesn’t have the executive experience of Governors Whitmer (Michigan) or Lujan Grisham (New Mexico). And she doesn’t have the experience or gravitas we see from Senators Harris, Warren, Baldwin, or Duckworth. But none of them drain Trump’s bank account in Florida, and only Harris brings out the Black vote.

Val Demings. More than anybody else, she gives Biden the best chance to win in 2010.