A big part of the VP choice is: who can help win the General Election?
Biden is already strong with African America voters. He polled over 40% with AA voters in South Carolina, for example. Comparatively, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker were polling at around 2–4%. So it doesn’t follow that having an AA running mate will drive out the AA vote. Where does Biden poll low?
Fact: The South will go red. The coasts will go blue. What matters is the swing states. Where the general election will be won or lost is in the swing states. These are: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Let’s break it down!
Iowa & New Hampshire — Buttigieg campaigned heavily in Iowa and won the state in the primary. He essentially tied for first place in New Hampshire (with Sanders). In both of those states, Biden did poorly. An ideal running mate for these two swing states? Buttigieg!
Michigan — Chasten Buttigieg is from Michigan and South Bend is next door. Buttigieg has home court advantage here.
Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin — All Midwestern states, and Buttigieg is a Rustbelt Indiana mayor. He has the “Midwestern nice” demeanor and speaks their language. Hence why he did so well in Iowa.
North Carolina and Virginia — Pundits marveled at how Biden did so well in these two states despite not having campaigned there. Hello! Both have large grassroots #TeamPete movements that helped swing those states to Biden after Pete dropped out. A February Pete rally in Arlington drew a crowd of over 8000. Pete’s got these two states.
Colorado — Sanders took Colorado. Biden needs help there in the general. Pete had 8800 enthusiastic fans at a Denver rally in February. He’s more progressive than Biden and can help motivate younger voters.
Florida — Pete and Biden both do well with older demographics, a large part of Florida’s population. Pete was doing excellent outreach among the Latino voters in Nevada but didn’t have much time between NH and NV. He speaks Spanish and aced his appearances on Telemundo and with the Culinary union. He has a strong Latinx policy. Pete could be an asset to Biden among Latino voters in Florida.
Pennsylvania — It’s Midwestern in values, which is a good fit for Pete. Philadelphia has a huge and active #TeamPete group. Pete also has a strong appeal to rural areas and farmers (he dominated the rural counties in IA and NH).
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