U.S. voters now know who will be on the ballot this November, following several major surprises in the presidential race since July. After securing the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris announced her running mate: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. This came three weeks after former President Donald Trump chose Ohio Sen. JD Vance to be his VP on the Republican ticket.
What do voters think of the vice-presidential picks? And what difference could it make in November?
Voters don’t know much about Walz – and have doubts about Vance
It’s too early to tell what Americans make of Tim Walz. Nearly half of all registered voters surveyed around the time of his selection had not heard of the Minnesota governor, or had no opinion of him.
This is actually quite typical. Gallup polling data from 2000 to 2016 shows that most Americans could not express an opinion one way or another about a VP candidate when surveyed immediately after his or her selection. The only two exceptions were John Edwards in 2004 and Dick Cheney in 2000. While initial impressions of Walz seem to be more favorable than unfavorable (as was the case for every preceding VP pick since 2000), much will depend on whether Democrats or Republicans succeed at defining his candidacy in their favor.
Vance also was not well known when Trump selected him for the GOP ticket, despite authoring a best-selling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which was later made into a movie. Just over half of registered voters expressed an opinion about Vance on July 18, a few days after Trump announced his pick.
But unlike most recent VP picks, Vance was relatively unpopular out of the gate, with a net-unfavorable rating in nearly every poll. His rocky rollout – including several awkward moments on the campaign trail, resurfaced videos in which he derided opponents as “childless cat ladies,” and Trump’s unwillingness to vouch for the potential VP’s qualifications – only made things worse. According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, over 40% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Vance, versus only about 30% favorable.
Don’t overestimate the effect of picking the VPs
Democrats perhaps have more reason to feel optimistic than Republicans about what their VP pick might contribute to the 2024 presidential race, based on current polling. But our research urges caution: Running mates have limited appeal to the wider electorate these days – and a marginal impact on presidential voting.
Years ago, when politics weren’t as polarized and parties were less homogeneous, the choice of a running mate might have attracted a fair number of voters torn between two relatively similar presidential candidates. Those days are gone.
As we demonstrate in a recent paper, running mates are becoming less appealing to voters outside their party – but at the same time more popular within their party.
In 2020, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence were two of the least popular VP candidates since 1968, according to data from the American National Election Study. Voters, including independents, rated both VP candidates negatively. Partisan opponents rated them more negatively than any previous candidate, by about 15 percentage points.
Yet co-partisans heartily approved of Harris and Pence, rating them more positively than any other running mate on record. These days, partisans love their VP pick and hate the opposing one, while independents aren’t thrilled with either of them. Polling in recent weeks suggests that trend will continue in 2024.
Here’s what our research discovered
But our research finds that running mates actually don’t have much of a direct effect on voting. In our book, Do Running Mates Matter? The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections, we show that voters typically prefer presidential and vice-presidential candidates from the same ticket, and opinions of the former influence vote choice much more than opinions about the VP.
While spikes in vice-presidential popularity can increase support for a given ticket during the campaign, these effects usually fade quickly. That’s largely because voters see themselves as electing a president – not a vice president. No matter how popular Walz may be, or how unpopular Vance may be, American voters fundamentally see this as a choice between Harris and Trump.
Nonetheless, our research shows that voters do care whether the running mate is well-qualified to serve as vice president or even president, if necessary. In 2008, voters who doubted Sarah Palin’s readiness to be (vice) president came to doubt John McCain’s judgment, and were less willing to vote for him. Conversely, Barack Obama reassured voters about his judgment by selecting Biden, who was exceedingly well-qualified, and gained votes as a result.
Running mates can also shift perceptions of a presidential candidate’s ideology. In 2020, voters rated Harris as more liberal than Biden, and came to see him as more liberal for having chosen her for the ticket.
Let’s put the VP picks in context
Debates continue over whether Harris was right to pick Walz or Trump should dump Vance from the Republican ticket. Whatever merit these arguments may have, they can easily overstate the running mate’s influence on presidential voting and mischaracterize the nature of those effects.
For voters, the 2024 election is effectively a contest between Harris and Trump. To the extent that Walz and Vance factor into voting decisions, it is probably not because voters care more about who is elected vice president than president. Rather, it is because the choice of a running mate tells them something important about what a Harris or Trump presidency might look like.
Christopher J. Devine is an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton. His books include Do Running Mates Matter? The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections (with Kyle C. Kopko) and I’m Here to Ask for Your Vote: How Presidential Campaign Visits Influence Voters.
Kyle C. Kopko is an adjunct professor of political science at Elizabethtown College.
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