No one knows for certain who Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton will select to be their Vice Presidential running mates, but one scenario has the two New York Presidential candidates selecting their Vice Presidents from neighboring New Jersey.
Trump might choose New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has no future in his state, with his popularity rating below 30 percent, and Christie has been one of the strongest supporters of Trump since the New Jersey Governor saw the handwriting on the wall, that Trump would be the nominee.
Hillary Clinton might select African American Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, seen as very high on the list of potential VP nominees, and having strong support in many quarters
Of course, if Booker ran, the racists would come out of the woodwork, as they have for eight years for Barack Obama.
But Booker vs Christie would be a very exciting VP debate, and both men could be seen as good choices to be “a beartbeat away” from the Presidency.
This blogger is no fan of Christie, far from it, but compared to many others on the potential Vice Presidential list, he would be preferable, a lesser evil among a vast number of evil candidates!
A 2016 Donald Trump (R-New York)/Chris Christie (R-New Jersey) ticket would definitely be a … losing ticket.
In 2012, the Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan became the first losing ticket to see the homes states of both candidates (Romney, from Massachusetts; Ryan, from Wisconsin) go to the winning opposition party—the re-elected Democratic ticket (Barack Obama, from Illinois, and Joe Biden, from Delaware) since 1956. That year, the winning Republican ticket of re-elected Dwight Eisenhower, from * New York, and Richard Nixon, from California, carried the home states of losing Democratic nominees Adlai Stevenson, from Illinois, and Estes Kefauver, from Tennessee.
(Notes: On Election Night 2012, some cited the year 1972. That is correct. But, the vice-presidential running mates, which were re-elected Republican Spiro Agnew and losing Democrat Sargent Shriver, both hailed from the same state—Maryland. So, I’m taking it back to 1956 to show that all four Republican and Democratic candidates—president and vice president—claimed separate home states. Also note that the asterisk next to Dwight Eisenhower’s home state. I’ve come across, over the years, different citations. Wikipedia.org lately says the 34th president claimed New York as his home state in both his 1952 and 1956 elections. Source: @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1956 .)
New York gave Barack Obama, with re-election in 2012, about a +28 margin (63.35 percent for Obama to the 35.17 percent for Mitt Romney). That isn’t going to flip to the 2016 Republican column for Donald Trump unless he wins by about +15 nationally (57 to 42 percent for likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton whose home state is also New York). And New Jersey was about +18 for Obama’s re-election (58.25 percent for Obama to 40.50 for Romney). That state isn’t going to flip Republican unless Trump wins a party pickup of the presidency and, in the U.S. Popular Vote, wins by at least +12. (The Republicans haven’t won by more than +2.46 since George W. Bush in 2004. And they haven’t won a double-digit margin in the U.S. Popular Vote since Ronald Reagan won re-election by +18.21 and 49 states in 1984.)
My guess is that, if Donald Trump and his campaign are being politically smart, the Republican vice-presidential nominee—whoever that will be—will come from a base state for Team Red. Someone from a state that tends to perform at least +10 percentage points more Republican than how the nation tends to vote. Sure, Trump could grab John Kasich, as a strategy, from bellwether Ohio. But, I think it will be someone from a Strong Republican state like Texas (it would be hilarious to see Ted Cruz once again surrender), Tennessee (some speculation lately of U.S. senator Bob Corker), Oklahoma (some rumor of its governor Mary Fallin), et al.