Abstract:

American vice presidential candidates are chosen for several reasons. Some of these rationales are easy to be recognized, while others belong to the cockles of the heart of the presidential candidates. Social scientists and journalists agree about the factors that are more essential: the vice presidential (VP) nominee’s capacity of balancing the ideological and personal characteristics of the presidential candidate and the “native son” effect, namely the guarantee that the VP nominee would carry his/her own state. These strategies are often combined and they work at different electoral levels: the first one has usually a national or macro-regional significance while the second is crucial in the battleground states.

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