Why He Probably Won’t Announce His Running Mate For Months

With the presidential primary essentially settled, the talk has already turned to who will be former Vice-President, Joe Biden”s running mate. But if historical is any guide, we won’t know the answer for a few months.

In the modern era of presidential nominations, which began when a number of the primary reforms were implemented in 1972the presumptive presidential nominee, you never announced his or her’s vice presidential pick before July 6. And we could be waiting much longer than that: A few classic matte haven’t been announced till late August.

But that is a wide date range, obscure years, the fact that the vice-presidential candidate announcements are closely tied to the timing of the party conventions — which, of course, varies every election year. Four of the vice-presidential nominees since 1972 were announced at at at at at of the convention, and almost all the others were announced shortly before.

For most of American history, the vice presidential nominees were chosen during the conventions themselves, originally by the same chaotic, the multiple-ballot process that was used to pick presidential nominees, but eventually, at the direction of the presidential nominee, the trend started with that Franklin D. Roosevelt, choosing Henry Wallace in the 1940s. And in 1984, Walter Mondale became the first presidential candidate to announce his running mate before the convention began (his pick, Geraldine Ferraro, also made historical in another, more important way, she was the the first woman on a major party’s presidential ticket).

Since then, the No. 2 spot on the ticket, you have almost always been announced the week before the convention, with the median vice-presidential announcement occurring four days before the convention gavels in. However, there have been some exceptions to this pattern. John Kerry is revealed to John Edwards out of his choice-on July 6, 2004 — 20 days before the Democratic convention, and the Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, unveiled on Aug. 11, 2012 — 16 days before the Republican conference.

This (plus a failed presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz”s stunt of choosing businesswoman Carly Fiorina in 2016) could suggest it is becoming more common for candidates to announce their running shoes matte weeks in advance. However, Cruz”s selection was seen as a desperate ploy to resurrect his sinking presidential campaign, and Romney’s was seen as an attempt to change the narrative amid the bad news cycle, so we should probably still only expect early announcements in limited circumstances. (And updated that it is worth considering that He is leading the Trump in most early polls, he does not fit the historical mold of a candidate who needs to announce his choice early.)

At one point, we probably could have expected Biden’the announcement in early September, shortly before the Democratic National Convention kicked off on July 13. But the coronavirus-related delay of the convention to the week of Aug. 17 and probably also pushed back the timing of the veep pick. If He follows the pattern of past nominees, we can probably expect to learn the identity of his running mate the week of Aug. 10. And if you’re trying to plan on when to exactly track all the airplanes or monitor finalists’ every move, might I recommend the Friday, Oct. 14? – The last five as vice-presidential picks have all been announced, either the Friday before the convention, or the early that Saturday morning.

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