Nate You know, I thought the same thing when I first saw the article that made me reconsider it.  I really do think he checks every relevant box for a vice-presidential candidate.  I guess I’ll try and go through them briefly, now that I’ve alluded to their existence.  For starters, there are two “job-related” boxes: whether they’re qualified for the presidency, and whether they can help you govern.  I think he’s a clear “check mark” for both of those things, and maybe even a “check-plus.” He’s a former two-term Iowa governor and a member of the cabinet. Importantly, he’s someone that Clinton has known for a long time — since the 1970s. He also co-chaired her campaign in 2008 — and she probably trusts him to be a loyal and capable partner in government.  Someone like Tim Kaine or Tom Perez would probably have to earn that status. I’m not sure Elizabeth Warren ever could.  I also think he’s a clear check mark on the two general election criteria: “do no harm” and, if possible, “add something.” He’s an experienced politician, and, in my opinion, he’s a clear and effective communicator. He’s not a star, but I don’t think he’s likely to underperform in a debate, at the Democratic convention or in interviews.  And I think he has a great “add something” case: Iowa is a true battleground, as you just mentioned. He’s a guy with a natural pitch to white working-class men, and especially white rural men, who are Clinton’s No. 1 weakness in the polls.  He has weaknesses, of course. He might not be as progressive as some on the left would like. But I don’t think he’s a risk on that front.  For example, I really do think there is some risk that a Warren pick would have trade-offs among well-educated Republicans or less-educated men. I don’t think there’s a risk that Vilsack would make her issues on the left even worse.  Toni Some people might say that Virginia is more important than Iowa (in the number of electoral votes), which points toward Kaine, but it could be argued that Iowa is more important. It’s more of a tossup. Virginia seems to be slipping away from Trump. But that also touches on the question of how important a VP pick can be in a state. How much of a difference could Vilsack make in Iowa in percentage-point terms?  Nate I think there’s a case that a vice-presidential pick can help in a state by a few points. Personally, Vilsack strikes me as likelier to pull that off than most: These bonuses seem bigger in smaller states (like Alaska) than in big ones, and Vilsack is a well-known guy who appeals to Clinton’s weakness in the state. On the other hand, maybe this isn’t the sort of election where vice presidents will make much of a difference.  I think the Iowa versus Virginia question is a fun one, because it gets at some of the key dynamics about this election.  Of all of the battleground states, Virginia is the one where Mitt Romney was most dependent on well-educated white voters — which is to say it’s the state where Trump has the most to lose.  Iowa, on the other hand, is the state where Barack Obama was most dependent on less-educated white voters, which is to say it’s the state where Clinton has the most to lose.  Now it may not be so simple: Trump could wind up doing well among less-educated white voters nationally, but not in the Midwest, where he struggled in part in the primary.  But so far, this pattern has played out in the battleground states. Clinton does seem to be holding up really well in places like Colorado and Virginia, but struggling in Iowa or Ohio.  Toni What is your latest thinking on North Carolina? There is actually a map in which Clinton loses Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, and still wins — with a big lift from North Carolina.  How can Dems lose Florida, Ohio, Pa., as well as Iowa and N.H., and still win? N.C. puts them over top https://t.co/Hqsfx3nG5C #2016election  Granted, if Clinton were to win North Carolina, she would probably be winning Florida anyway. But it is interesting to think about how Democrats could sustain damage in the Rust Belt in future years and still win with more diverse and more educated states like Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina.  Nate I do think North Carolina is a very serious problem for the Republicans. I don’t know whether I think it’s realistic for Clinton to count on the state in a race where she’s lost Pennsylvania and Florida, but I think it’s at least imaginable.  Romney won more college-educated white voters there than in Florida or Pennsylvania, although not quite as much as in Colorado and Virginia. The Democratic share of the working-class white voter there is lower than in any other battleground, so maybe there’s less of an opportunity for Trump to make gains. It doesn’t have many of these sort of postindustrial and heavily Democratic towns like Scranton where you could imagine Trump just making huge gains.  Toni You wrote recently that you had just seen the “most credible sign in a while that Clinton is outperforming Obama among Hispanic voters.”  Nate Well, there have been a lot of polls showing Clinton doing about as well as Obama among Hispanic voters. It was the first one in a while where her standing was distinctly better than it was for Obama four years ago.  Clinton leads Trump among Latinos by 76%-14% margin, per NBC/WSJ/Telemundo oversample (English + Spanish interviews)  Toni It was an NBC/WSJ/Telemundo poll: Clinton led Trump, 76-14, with Latinos.  Nate Yeah, so, in our data from 2012, Obama had a 66-to-25 percent lead among registered Hispanic voters. The Pew poll a few weeks ago, for instance, had Clinton up by 66 to 24. It wasn’t a huge sample, but my instinct had been that Clinton would be doing better among Hispanic voters than Obama, so that Pew poll came as a bit of a surprise.  Toni Let’s get back to the convention. Ryan Enos, a Harvard political scientist, joked on Twitter: ”With the revelation of plagiarism, Trump stands to lose the significant support he enjoyed from academics and journalists.”  To which Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist (and Upshot contributor), replied: ”Agree no one really cares, but negative process stories can drown out convention messages.”  If we take a glass-half-full view — that conventions really matter — the messages are being seriously muffled right now.  Nate Absolutely. And I think that I could make an argument that it matters a bit more for Trump. A lot of his problems right now aren’t simply about “base unity.” They’re about him. Voters have a decidedly negative impression of him personally, and they don’t think he can handle the presidency. If conventions can do anything — if a spouse’s speech can do anything — it’s to move those sorts of numbers where Trump has the biggest problems. And it looks as if they’ve forfeited another opportunity to do it.  In recent weeks, Nate and Toni looked at the groups Donald Trump would win if the election were held today and Hillary Clinton’s modest but resilient national lead.
A weekly chat includes a look at her ill-fated speech, vice-presidential options and the state of play in North Carolina and Iowa.