Politico’s Jake Sherman: Biden’s Choice of Running Mate Is ‘Not Important at All’

As former Vice President Joe Biden is poised to announce his pick for running mate, Politico‘s Jake Sherman told MSNBC that it really doesn’t matter who he picks. Sherman spoke to Morning Joe‘s Willie Geist about polling on the VP choice.

Geist asked how important the vice presidential nominee, whom Biden will reveal next week, will be.

“Not important at all, Willie,”Sherman said. “I think that with the polling that we have, the Politico/Morning Consult poll this morning indicates that 20% of Democrats say it will change their vote. I mean, this is — the vice presidential choice has turned into a do-no-harm proposition over the last couple cycles. The last dispositive choice — I guess Sarah Palin was dispositive to John McCain. Joe Biden helped Barack Obama around the margins.”

“But again, here, we see Democrats are with Joe Biden and really don’t believe that this choice is going to make much of a difference in their vote,” he said.

“I would note something, as we consider both Kamala Harris, who appears to be the front-runner, if you look at Joe Biden’s note card, and Val Demings, the congresswoman from Orlando, Florida, both of whom have law enforcement backgrounds. Just 38% of Democrats, according to our poll, want a vice president with a law enforcement background.2

“Obviously, the recent troubles with police and the protests probably play into that. And I’d just keep that in mind as we get to the next week, because this pick is coming, Willie, by the end of next week. We’re getting into that hot zone of when things are gonna start leaking out and people are going to start framing their minds around who could be the next number two.”

“And I just want to make one more point. The way Democrats are talking about this on Capitol Hill is Joe Biden is choosing a likely successor, a likely next standard-bearer for the Democratic Party. So incredibly important from a political aspect.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.