Do not pick a purple or red state senator as a vice presidential nominee

What I said about Sherrod Brown being the presidential nominee applies with even greater force to the utterly absurd idea of making Amy Klobuchar or Tammy Baldwin the vice presidential nominee:

Some people are skeptical about Dems being favored to lose an VP-driven open race in MN/WI in 2022, but these numbers are pretty easy to reproduce with a simple linear model. People are underestimating how consistently brutal midterms are for the party that holds the presidency. https://t.co/xWXeGYhvlj pic.twitter.com/Q5EPiJr4Qs— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) April 12, 2020

Perhaps this model is too bearish on Democrats winning an open election in Minnesota (which Clinton won by less than two points) even in an off-year midterm, but it doesn’t really matter. Whether you put the chances of losing the seat at 80% or 20% (and the former is much more likely to be correct than the latter), it’s a risk there’s absolutely no reason to take. The upside electoral benefit of any vice presidential pick is trivial-to-nonexistent, and there are plenty of women qualified to do the job. If you want a senator, Kamala Harris works. Tammy Duckworth works. Elizabeth Warren I’m more ambivalent about because of MA having a Republican governor and because I would just as soon have her leading the progressive wing of the Senate caucus, but if she were willing to resign her seat in the summer and Biden would agree to a de facto co-presidenting arrangement I could be talked into it. But Klobuchar and Baldwin shouldn’t receive a second’s consideration — the idea is ridiculous, and reflects a failure across the spectrum of the left to take the Senate seriously enough.