"The vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact," Trump said during his disastrous appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists last week. Trump certainly hopes that bit of conventional wisdom holds true this year. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, has turned out to be an unusually poor candidate by almost any criterion, to the point where Trump can't even bring himself to say Vance is ready to president. The story on the other side is far different. We don't yet know how Kamala Harris's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will perform as he moves into the national spotlight. But in addition to putting his state out of reach, Walz could start undoing the Democratic Party's weakness with precisely the people Vance was supposed to represent: rural voters, especially rural white voters. Only about 20 percent of Americans live in what the Census classifies as rural areas; most of us live in cities and suburbs. But the Republican Party's power is built on rural votes, not only through their dominance of small rural states but by virtue of their strong support in rural areas within states, including every battleground state. This is a preview of Paul Waldman's latest article. Read the full column here. |
