This is Pastor Tim’s Article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Let’s talk a little bit about Vice Presidents. As I am writing this article, Kamala Harris just announced her VP pick as being Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota. I have to admit, I know not one thing about this man and have never heard of him before today. So about him personally, I know nothing. On the other hand, Donald Trump has chosen our very own JD Vance. I read Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, back when it first came out. I know a little more about Vance, but not too much.
But I have to admit, I find both of these choices to be very interesting. Let me tell you why.
The presidency is won not through the popular vote but through the electoral college. What that means is that each state gets to choose who they want to be the next president. Once a majority is determined to be reached, that candidate gets whatever the number of electorates that state possesses. Each state has an allotted number of electoral votes based on the most recent census. This is because we are not a democracy, we are a republic. In the way our country operates, all decisions are made on the State level and when a federal decision needs to be made, it is determined by the individual states. Democracy exists in our country at the state level. Laws are passed down to you and me from the state and decisions are rendered and passed on to the federal government through the state.
Federal elections are determined by the electoral college. That means the responsibility of having free and fair elections belongs to each state because that is where the decision gets made. What does this have to do with the Vice Presidency? Both the choosing of Vance and Welz was made with much fanfare and hand wringing. This illustrates just how far we have come from a republic. There is going to be more media coverage of the vice-presidential pick here in Ohio than there was of our governor’s race in 2022. We see the Vice President as having more impact on our lives than our actual state governor. We can debate whether or not that is actually true, but the perception is that it is true. We no longer see the state as our authority, we see the true power lying with the federal government. That is why the choosing of a VP is so newsworthy.
Which is what makes both Trump’s and Harris’ VP decision so very interesting in that both of them chose a vice presidential candidate who will not win them a single extra vote in the electoral college. I don’t have a crystal ball, but looking at the last two presidential elections, it seems pretty certain that Ohio will go Trump since that is the direction we went in 2016 & 2020. There was nothing to gain in choosing Vance in that we will probably repeat what we did in the last two elections.
Minnesota on the other hand has not voted Republican since 1972 when it went for Richard Nixon. Even in Ronald Regan’s 49 state skunking in 1984 missed being a clean sweep because Minnesota voted for their very own Walter Mondale.
Given the track record, we would expect Ohio to go Republican and Minnesota to go Democrat. Which means that neither candidate is going to get a bump for picking a favorite politician from a swing state. This is something that politicians usually do with the VP position because there isn’t much else that could be gained from a place holder position than to give a bump in certain demographics where that individual is known. Since both VP candidates are from states that seem pretty certain which way they will vote, neither side seems to have gained much in the choice they made.
What I conclude based on these results is that both Harris and Trump believes they have such a commanding lead that they don’t need a bump in a state where they may be close. That is an interesting strategy to leave possible votes on the table by choosing the candidates they both did. I am looking forward to a Welz vs Vance debate, which I am sure will be coming sometime over the next few months. We will see then which side made the best decision!