The Kamala Harris Veepstakes

Candidates, couches, and coconuts: a politics update by Jacob Cohen (@Conflux).

Manifold has an election “needle” now! It’s over at manifold.markets/election. 

Since last week, when her odds were “only” 85%, Kamala Harris has been endorsed by a majority of Democratic delegates (plus Barack Obama), and can safely be considered the Democratic nominee. Manifold gives Harris a 97% chance.¹

The general election, as you can see, is a lot more competitive than under Biden! Maybe Trump has a small lead, but it’s really in the range of “anything can happen.” 

 

 

 

What’s up next? Well, Nate Silver is planning to re-release his model shortly (with kamala_mode activated) but what’s better than Nate’s model? Manifold trying to guess what it will say…

 

Also, the market thinks that it’ll only be a few days before Harris announces her running mate — so it seems like a great time for an analysis!

Let’s Talk about the Veepstakes

  

Last week, the leaders of the “veepstakes” were three white, male popular Democratic governors of purple-to-red states: Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and Andy Beshear of Kentucky — though there were plenty of other potential options, such as Pete Buttigieg (who’s been popular on YouTube lately). 

While Manifold still gives Beshear a small chance of being picked (Cooper has removed himself from contention), we’re now more confident (above 80% combined probability) that the choice will be one of three frontrunners: Josh Shapiro (still), Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Let’s meet them.

Josh Shapiro, the Popular Pennsylvanian

Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state in the 2024 election — Manifold thinks it has a 31% chance of being the “tipping-point state,” essentially the most crucial.

In 2016, Trump won there. In 2020, Biden won, but only by 1.2%. In 2022, Democrat John Fetterman defeated Mehmet Oz to be elected senator, in an upset, by a 5% margin. 

At the same time, Josh Shapiro was elected governor — by a 15% margin. 

It’s true that he was running against Doug Mastriano, an unpopular, far-right Republican nominee. Still, Shapiro’s win came as a surprise to no one. In his 2016 and 2020 campaigns for state Attorney General, he did better than Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. 

He’s a popular governor, and mostly scandal-free (although attention may be drawn to a staffer’s sexual harassment settlement). When Democrats were trying to decide who to replace Biden with, Shapiro was widely seen as a more electable option, and perhaps as VP he could help Harris out. Running mates tend to have a pretty small impact, historically — maybe a percent or two in their home state, if you’re lucky. But given how pivotal Pennsylvania is, don’t be surprised if Harris’s chance jumps by 2 or 5% if she selects Shapiro. 

Mark Kelly, the Astronaut-Turned-Senator

Like Shapiro, Mark Kelly represents a swing state — Arizona — though that state is only 7% likely to be the tipping point. (Compared to Biden, Harris is comparatively a bit stronger in Sun Belt states like Arizona and Georgia, so a victory there might be more likely. Less so in the Rust Belt, which increases the risk of an Electoral College-popular vote split).

Before he was elected senator in 2020 (by 2 points, nothing like Shapiro’s landslide), Mark Kelly wasn’t a politician. He was an astronaut, along with his twin brother Scott Kelly, and he’s spent over 50 days in outer space. (The US has actually had a few astronaut-politicians — did you know that John Glenn was an Ohio senator for 25 years?)

He’s also served in the Navy, though, and he was involved in anti-gun activism in the years after his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, was shot. As for his Senate career, Wikipedia says “Kelly ran as a moderate in 2020 and voiced support for bipartisanship … As of October 2022, Kelly has voted in line with Biden's stated position 94.5% of the time.”

Tim Walz, the Venn Diagram Governor

Kamala Harris loves Venn diagrams. (You know, those three circles, and how they overlap? Apparently it’s enough to win over Randall Munroe.) James Medlock (who, unrelatedly, achieved fame on early Manifold making a 104-trader market about a cat) has created a Venn diagram of the veepstakes:

To be honest, I don’t know that I endorse this Venn diagram. (Who does Kelly alienate? I thought people loved astronauts.)

But I decided to include it because I don’t know anything else about Tim Walz — other than that he’s the governor of Minnesota, a state which is unlikely to matter but is correlated with more critical states in the Midwest. I think of him as similar to Tim Kaine, but maybe that’s because they’re both named Tim. 

Floating around 20%, he’s a bit less likely than Shapiro or Kelly, but if Harris picks him, we’ll all learn about him together!

What About Whitmer?

There’s one name in that chart I haven’t mentioned at all: Gretchen Whitmer. The popular governor of Michigan, Whitmer was widely floated as an alternative to Biden and Harris. She said she didn’t want the job, but my read is that’s just something politicians say when they don’t think they’ll get it. So why isn’t she under consideration?

Well, it’s pretty obvious when you look at the other options, isn’t it? Since Harris is a woman of color, the conventional wisdom is that in order to win white swing voters in the Midwest, it’s imperative that she restore “normalcy” to the ticket by picking a white man — or, at the very least, it would confer some advantage. So far, by publicly considering only white men, she hasn’t shown any signs that she disagrees with this philosophy.

Matty Yglesias and Nate Silver do, though (among others). In Yglesias’s words: “Whatever issues Harris faces based on her identity are issues she needs to navigate with her words and actions, regardless. I don’t think conjuring up a white male running mate accomplishes that.” 

Does Manifold agree? We have a conditional market on whether Harris would win, conditional on her choice of VP. Some of the options should be disregarded (everyone knows she won’t pick Mitt Romney, so traders are free to bet the market to whatever probability they want) but Whitmer is performing very competitively, exceeding Tim Walz, Andy Beshear, and Roy Cooper. 

 

The Biggest Flaw in Veepstakes Discourse

People always talk about which VP could help Harris’s chances the most. And it’s true: this is a factor. Here at Manifold, we care about small changes in probability — your 1 or 3 or 5% change. 

But the truth is, that’s typically all you get from a vice presidential nominee. Most recent VP nominees have barely impacted the race. (The selection of Sarah Palin in 2008 probably hurt McCain, but that’s the most recent example I can think of.)

But running mate picks do matter. To explain why, let me tell you a true story.

The True Story

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a senator who ran for the Democratic nomination for president. But it wasn’t going well — the senator’s candidacy was floundering. They were polling in the single digits. Before the primaries really got going, the candidate dropped out. Someone else became the nominee.

The nominee, ultimately, was quite different from them. A different age, a different race, a different political culture. But the nominee wanted to balance their ticket, and they decided — even though the senator’s campaign had gone poorly — to pick the senator.

The nominee was elected president. Fast-forward a few years later to an unusual election, one where Democratic voters don’t feel like they can pick the candidate who they really want. So the vice president (our protagonist, the former senator, whose presidential campaign previously floundered) found their way to be the nominee, and perhaps the presidency.

Yes Conflux, You’re Very Clever

This story, it so happens, has two protagonists. Two senators, who after failed presidential campaigns, secured the vice presidency and later went on to be the presidential nominee in tumultuous circumstances.

Kamala Harris — and Joe Biden. All my words above were equally true.

Anyway, the point is, when you’re picking a vice president, there’s a fair chance you’re picking a future president. So choose carefully.

On that note, let’s talk about the 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee, JD Vance. According to Manifold, he now has a 20% chance to win the presidency in 2028, and a 45% chance to win the Republican nomination.

 

 

Will JD Vance Be Replaced?

However, Vance’s approval polling is quite bad. It’s unclear what exactly caused this — he referred to some Democrats as “childless cat ladies,” advocated for parents to vote on behalf of their children, and has been the subject of totally false and baseless rumors of having sexual relations with a couch. 

Manifold only gives a 10% chance that Trump will replace him. It wouldn’t be totally unprecedented — Democrats replaced 1972 vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton after news reports about his medical record. Still, Trump has shown no signs of wanting to do this, and it doesn’t seem like Vance was a catastrophic pick, especially if Trump wants him to be the president in 2028. (TracingWoodgrains’ take: Vance was picked to help set a certain policy foundation for the future.)

 

Speaking of precedents:

Kamala Harris Will Make History…

as the first ever Democratic nominee from California. (Is that what you expected me to say?)

But not only that: she’s the first Democratic nominee from any state west of South Dakota!

Not only that: in 2020, she was the first Democratic vice presidential nominee from the West!

It’s a crazy statistic. Of course, as you go back far enough in history, the Western states weren’t part of the country, and even after that, they were pretty sparsely populated. Still, it’s striking that this part of the nation — home to many Democrats, in addition to a really cool prediction market website — has been passed over in favor of mostly Northeasterners.

There is probably some coincidence to it, though. Republicans have nominated plenty of Westerners: Richard Nixon (1960, 1968, 1972) and Ronald Reagan (1980, 1984) hailed from California. Barry Goldwater (1964) and John McCain (2008) represented Arizona. In 2008, in fact, with McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party had a Western-Western ticket. And it’s true that McCain’s rival, Barack Obama, while representing Illinois in the Senate (so he doesn’t count as a Westerner for this statistic), was born in Hawaii.

If Harris picked Mark Kelly of Arizona as her VP, the Democrats would have an unprecedented Westerner-Westerner ticket.

One Last Market

As is tradition, I’m showcasing a “fun” market at the end of the article — with my usual M1,000 subsidy to encourage accuracy. This one already has 27 traders, but I was surprised at the result. Could there really be an 18% chance of a coconut shortage? Why would people buy coconuts? If you have insights about the coconut economy, let me know in the comments.

 

I’ve been Jacob Cohen, known on Manifold as Conflux. I blog at tinyurl.com/confluxblog, make puzzles at puzzlesforprogress.net, and don’t release any new episodes of the Market Manipulation Podcast on your favorite podcast platform. I also write a subset of the tweets on Manifold’s Twitter! (Okay, fine, “the posts on Manifold’s X account.”) Check out Manifold Politics at manifold.markets/politics, or via its Politics or 2024 Election categories. And if you enjoyed this newsletter, don’t forget to like, share, and/or subscribe to Above the Fold on Substack! 

Postscript

Last week I asked you all to predict what I’ve been up to. Thanks to some detective work — including digging into the publicly-available Manifold Notion, the market converged on the fact that, not only have I been writing newsletters, I’ve been writing tweets! (I also made a few suggestions for the election needle!) So if you want more of my excellent writing, go over to x.com/ManifoldMarkets and hit that “follow” button. (If you had done that, you’d have already known about the Westerner thing…)

 

But that’s not my proudest contribution to the Manifold Twitter so far. 

Dactyls and Nicknames

First, is Trump’s usual name-calling strategy failing when it comes to Kamala Harris? We’ve seen “Laffin’ Kamala,” “Lyin’ Kamala,” and others, but Trump has yet to settle on a permanent nickname. Could it be because of the stress pattern of Kamala’s name? That’s what “okay Kelly” suggested on Twitter. I’m skeptical, because Kamala has the same stress pattern as Hillary (who Trump had no trouble with), though he mispronounces her name anyway. Still, prerat nominated Bella Rudd to compose a double dactyl poem about her:

higgeldy-piggeldy

president kamala?

known for her falling from

coconut trees

says she's the answer to

gerontological

issues by frequently

rousing the Ds!

I really enjoyed this, and was inspired to respond with my own double dactyl poem:

manifold politics

gives probabilities!

president kamala?

that's forty-two.

life and the universe:

context is everything

in which you live and what

came before you.

I was feeling good about this poem, and how I unified references to Kamala’s market probability of winning (then exactly 42%), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and that now-ubiquitous coconut meme, while preserving the long-short-short-long-short-short metrical structure. When I was reading more afterward about the double dactyl verse form, though, I learned that it’s also traditional to have the second line of the second stanza be a single word (“gerontological” in Bella Rudd’s poem) and begin the poem entirely with something nonsensical. 

Oh well — if I write another double dactyl on behalf of Manifold, I’ll have to begin it with “rationalussily.”

1.  Vivek Ramaswamy suspects a secret plot to replace Harris with Michelle Obama. If you believe him, there’s plenty of profit to be made.