Former President Donald Trump declined to say whether he thinks Sen. JD Vance of Ohio would be ready to serve as vice president should they win November’s election, with Trump instead saying it doesn’t matter.
“I’ve always had great respect for him but… historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact, I mean virtually any impact,” he said Wednesday during a question-and-answer session with Black journalists in Chicago.
The question was asked after the panel’s hosts brought up what they described as Vance’s numerous “stumbles” and the “controversy” since he was publicly tapped as Trump’s running mate. They also noted the recent assassination attempt on Trump.
“Historically the choice of a vice president makes no difference,” he said.
Trump cited Lyndon Johnson’s rise to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy as one “maybe” exception to whether a vice presidential choice matters, though he added it’s “not for vote reasons but for political reasons.”
A more recent example he did not mention is Sen. John McCain’s pick of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate during the 2008 presidential election. Journalist Howard Fineman wrote at the time that Palin “sent wavering Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans scurrying to Sen. Barack Obama ― even as she has failed to substantially expand Sen. John McCain’s support, even among the ranks of self-described conservatives.”
A 2010 study out of Stanford University found that Palin’s presence on McCain’s ticket cost him nearly 2 percentage points, equating to roughly 2.1 million votes.
At the start of the McCain-Palin campaign, most people surveyed said they didn’t have much of an opinion of her, but as the campaign progressed, nearly all of those people formed a negative one, The Washington Post previously reported, citing the full study.
Voters at the time also expressed concern that if something happened to McCain — who at the time would have been the oldest person elected president, at 72 ― they’d be stuck with Palin.
Trump is 78. And like President Joe Biden, Trump has faced intense scrutiny about his age.
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