Well, I am comforted to learn that Professor Alan Lichtman has predicted that Joe Biden will win the presidency. He’s picked the winner (including Gore in 2000) in every election since 1984, and I see little reason to doubt him now. Watching him go through his 13 keys to winning a presidential election, I can see why it’s difficult for challengers to beat incumbents. Biden barely passed the test, seven to six, in spite of everything.

Lichtman doesn’t look at surveys at all, but Trump’s net disapprovals are currently in the high teens. Even Rasmussen has Biden winning by three points, and the general consensus is considerably higher, sometimes ranging into double figures. Key states are looking uniformly bad for the president and, according to the FiveThirtyEight average of polls, Biden is even ahead by one tenth of one percent in Texas. The Economist says Biden has a 97 percent chance of winning the popular vote and an 88 percent chance of winning the election.

There are certainly things that can still go wrong, but it’s hard to project Trump doing anything to improve his standing with the electorate. Voter suppression, tabulation tampering, foreign meddling, or major missteps by the Biden campaign could make this a close election, but everything points to a Trump loss.

Interestingly, two of Lichtman’s keys focus on the respective charisma of the candidates. He gives both Trump and Biden a failing grade: Biden because he’s too vanilla and Trump because his appeal is too narrow. But Lichtman never mentions running mates. For him, vice-presidential candidates do not have even the slightest significance in his projection.

I can’t say that I’m that indifferent to who Biden chooses, but I agree that his decision is unlikely to change the ultimate outcome of the election. Maybe there’s more negative potential than positive, but I see little reason to fight or obsess over the issue. People tend to cast their vote for or against the person in the top position, and this election more than any other in my lifetime seems to be a pure referendum on the incumbent.

The only reason to care much about Biden’s running mate is that they might become president some day. I doubt they will prevent Biden from becoming president, so I have trouble getting too worked up about it.