What Went Down In The Arizona, Florida And Illinois Primaries

Reader question

I mean, the two basic considerations are (i) having someone who seems ready to step in on Day 1, especially given the age of Biden (and Trump) in the age of the coronavirus, and then (ii) potentially either balancing or doubling down on the ticket, depending if Biden wants to go with a more traditional balancing or Clinton-Gore double-down approach.

A third consideration might be picking a candidate from a swing state, although that only matters at the margin. I generally think the first consideration would lead Biden to pick a big trusted name like Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris. The conventional wisdom then seems to be that ticket-balancing is more important than doubling down on your strengths, which might tip things to Harris more than Klobuchar, but I’m not quite sure it’s quite so obvious that balancing is better … that’s something for a longer essay.

Yeah, I think there’s a case for both sides, Sarah. On the one hand, obviously, the health concerns are enormous right now, and elections don’t just endanger voters — there are poll workers, party officials and a ton of other people working behind the scenes to pull events like this off. If holding this election leads to more infections and even more strain on hospitals which are already set to be overwhelmed, that would be awful. On the other hand, process is important (including the process for trying to postpone elections), and Geoffrey is right that the circumstances in this case were pretty dicey.