Veep candidates bring a 0-5% increase in party vote in their home state
Got into a conversation about this yesterday: how much help does a vice-presidential candidate provide in winning that candidate's home state? I vaguely recall that poli science says not much. I went and noodled around wiki and can now draw my own dramatic conclusion: not much.
Wiki has all presidential results by state and year (e.g., here's Texas 1988) so it's simple to compare results before and after a state resident ran for vice president. In the last 30 years, not much happened, although 1992 and 1996 are hard to use because of a strong third party showing. I'd say everyone brought in much less than a 5% bump, with only Bentsen and (sadly) Palin coming in at or slightly above that level.
This small of a bump suggests that veep candidates shouldn't be chosen based on the help they provide in their home state.
OTOH, there's Florida - that's a very big swing state, and a 2% bump could be useful. I've thought a joint ticket of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio could make winning Florida very difficult for Democrats. I believe Jeb isn't particularly popular in Florida and Rubio is only moderately popular, but people do tend to root for the home team.
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Jeb Bush has claimed in the past to be Hispanic. Do you think the Republicans will run a totally Hispanic ticket? They would lose the crucial redneck vote. Check out the comment sections of blogs to find great hostility at undocumented workers (illegal aliens).
It basically can't happen, unless one of them suddenly switches his state of residence, like Dick Cheney did from Texas to Wyoming in 2000. Electors from a state can not give both their presidential and VP votes to candidates from their state.
Steve - Politico says they can be from the same state, although things get complicated if it's a close count in the Electoral College:
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/apr/16/lawrence-odonnell/president-vice-president-same-state-allowed/
Whoops, I meant Politifact.
John - I think the rednecks won't even know that Jeb once claimed to be Hispanic, and only a few of them will know his wife is Mexican. I think Rubio as veep will cost the Rs some racist votes but would pick up some from Hispanics that usually vote Democratic.
They would put up "Vote por Marco Rubio, el vice presidente que habla como tu" posters all over Mexican neighborhoods. They would get confused and get could win California for the GOP.
On the other hand Hillary could pick Bill Nye and get the nerd vote. That would be an interesting race.
But now that I think of it, that commie Cicarello is pushing Assata Powell to come back from Cuba and run against Hillary. I'd love to see that race, but I would demand they let me go to Cuba to run for Supreme Dictator for life with the right to jail anybody I want.
Totally OT, but I just had to send along this journal article that made me do a double take - it was not an April 1 issue, and it is evidently not just a figment of Eli's vivid imagination.
Expertly Validated Models and Phylogenetically-Controlled Analysis Suggests Responses to Climate Change Are Related to Species Traits in the Order Lagomorpha
Res ipsa loquitur
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