While most of the political buzz this week has been about whether President Joe Biden will stay in the race, we’re waiting for another looming decision.
Donald Trump has yet to choose a vice president candidate, and we’re days away from the Republican National Convention, meaning the final piece of this election is close to being decided.
It’s a decision for the former president that should continue his strategy of giving Biden little to use as a rallying point for his floundering reelection campaign.
Choosing a more traditional candidate is the best thing Trump can do for this moment and for his chances to win. A respectable, competent, even boring Republican will be the best thing to keep his momentum going.
Picking the wrong VP helps Biden. Trump shouldn’t choose Vance.
Since Biden’s tragic debate performance on June 27, his campaign has been on the defensive, even with little pressure being applied from Trump and the GOP.
The two distraction methods Biden’s team has tried, obsessing over “Project 2025” and a flurry of Supreme Court decisions, have done little to quell the questions of his mental fitness. Thursday night’s news conference didn’t change that.
Trump is also old: Do Republicans realize Trump is the old guy if Biden drops out? Haley would fix that.
But radical a VP choice, such as 39-year-old Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, could shift some of the heat away from Biden and refocus media and voter attention back onto Trump’s MAGA message and the extreme politics that come with it.
Sure, Vance rallies Trump’s MAGA base and offers a line of succession for the movement beyond Trump’s term limit. But he also does two things that are disastrous to the Trump campaign.
First, Vance is off-putting to principled GOP voters. I know because I am one, but the stats agree. In the 2022 midterm elections, Vance ran more than 5 points behind most of the GOP ticket in solidly red Ohio. Sure, part of that can be attributed to the quality of his opponent, Tim Ryan, as a candidate. However, in Vance’s only true election experience, he underperformed among Republican voters. That will get worse in a general election.
Second, picking Vance would allow the Biden campaign to sell the message that this is truly a MAGA ticket that needs to be defeated. Sure, Democrats will try this tactic anyway, but a more unity-focused Republican ticket with a traditional conservative would make this angle look even more preposterous to the right-leaning swing voters that Trump needs to win.
Haley should be vice president: Nikki Haley is the clear choice for Trump’s VP pick. So I’m sure he’ll go full MAGA.
Trump’s VP choice still needs to bring some calm to the ticket
The American people know who Trump is, and a majority have an unfavorable view of the former president (albeit not to the extreme of the past).
Choosing someone with little baggage, such as Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin or Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is the best course of action. As was true with Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, a stable vice president candidate can now offset some of Trump’s brash nature, political unpredictability and MAGA extremism.
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Trump has had enough of his own scandals, but these are old news to the American people. Somebody with few ridiculous headlines to their name allows Americans who don’t like Biden to look past Trump. Picking a MAGA acolyte would only remind voters how extreme Trump is and infuse Biden’s campaign with a new political target to rally around.
As has been true for Trump for a long time, the least brash choice is the right one, particularly regarding his running mate. The Biden campaign desperately needs something to latch onto, and Trump would be best not to give it to them.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When will Trump pick his VP? He should avoid MAGA choice
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