Other than him not surviving, is there any scenario where that’s not JD Vance?
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Yeah, sure. First, despite Vance’s best efforts to kiss butt, he may find himself at odds with Trump and Trump might decide to tank him as he did Pence and a host of others. Second, there are the Trump kids to contend with. Even if Trump might not be happy about his kids being in a position to potentially overshadow him, he would still likely not support Vance over them. Third, if things appear to go to sh*t over the next 4 years, Vance might find himself in a position similar to Biden/Harris and may not find himself being popular. I think if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent US and world history, it is that it is WAY easier to campaign on the negatives of your opponent than on your strengths. Fourth, with Trump’s unusual picks for his administration, he might inadvertently end up introducing someone who is more popular than Vance. Especially since Trump will not give Vance credit for anything.
However, if one assumes a correlation among state results…it could very easily be that a 2% shift countrywide is required to be expected to move the needle that small amount in the few states that matter.
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Eh, I think the way that’s normally looked as is the margin in the tipping point state.
Sure if you need more than just the tipping point state, you’d win with 1% more votes in the state you lost by 0.5% and 1.5% more votes in the state you lost by 1%.
But that’s probably not how the votes would swing. You’re unlikely to pick up more votes in the state your opponent had a larger margin in.
So you’d need a 1.5% swing (implied is that this means across the board) to change the outcome of the election.
(Please don’t nitpick and say well you only need 1.0000001% more.)