EDIT I should have phrased the title differently. In my mind it went “blames Vance for his campaign troubles and failures, and replaces him” → “scapegoats him.” The title should have been “replaces Vance as running mate.”
EDIT 2 The community rules say to only post links to articles, so I think my post violates the rules: I’m going to report my own post, and I expect it to be removed. Don’t bother replying. I’m going to try to find another community for discussion-type posts. Sorry for the noise.
I haven’t seen this discussed since the debate, and I’m curious what people think would happen.
The idea came from a post-debate discussion on NPR (National Public Radio), where one of the (professional) political commentators was asked if this was possible and they replied, briefly, that it would have to be done soon.
- From the analyst’s response, it seems that it’s not too late for Trump to make this change. Ballots may have been printed, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any legal challenge to him making a swap this late.
- It’s clear Trump isn’t as enamored of Vance as he initially was.
- I think even hard-core conservatives would agree that Vance hasn’t helped Trump’s campaign, and (as the commentator pointed out) he’s gone off-piste from Trump’s talking points at times.
- Trump’s core is voting for Trump; the running mate is a side show, and it’s questionable how much Vance appeals to Trump’s base. I believe Trump knows all of this, or at least believes it himself.
- Trump prides himself on firing people when he doesn’t like the way things are going, and it would be in keeping character for him to make Vance a scapegoat for the polling reversal and his losing the debate.
Therefore, I think this is not just a purely hypothetical question, but a very real possibility. Trump is chaos at the best of times, and this would be an unsurprising action. Regardless of advice he gets from his handlers, he’ll do what he feels like.
So my questions are: first, who’s the most likely choice for a swap; and second, how do you think it’d impact the election?
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If he dumps Vance, it’ll be for Kennedy. I don’t think that will impact much but I’m amazed Kennedy wasn’t selected in the first place.
Trump / Kennedy signs, honestly. I guess maybe Trump thought he’d be second fiddle on his own ticket if he took that move.
He legally can’t do this.
That makes me think it’s more likely that he’ll do it anyway.
Sad but true
It seems as if he can do it up until election day. The hitch is that Vance has to step down, but I can’t imagine that he’d resist if, behind closed doors, Trump told him to beat it.
I am not an expert on presidential election rules, though, so if you have a different source saying that he can’t, I’d appreciate a link. And, no, “9 News” is not an ultimate source of truth, but I didn’t find anything that said otherwise.
Couches everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief
It all has to do with how electors are bound by their states to vote. Some states penalize electors who do not vote the way the election is certified, and the election is certified based on the names on the ballot. States do have a lot of leeway, though, over their electoral college slates and I wouldn’t put it past some MAGA states to do whatever Trump wanted via legislation…
However, both the President and VP need a majority of EC votes. If Trump ditched Vance and managed to win, he would also have to get enough states to go along with his switcheroo, and there is no indication he would get them all to go along. He may get a split between ECs voting Trump/Vance and Trump/Kennedy, meaning that no VP candidate gained that majority …
… Which would throw the VP election to the Senate. So, in the unlikely event that Trump won but switches VPs and Democrats retain the Senate, we may have another President Trump, but this time with Tim Walz as his VP. I bet Tim would buy Trump all the McDonalds he wanted.
