Now Hillary Clinton has passed the threshold to secure the Democrat nomination, betting focus shifts to her choice of running mate. In last week’s piece for Betfair, I weighed up the chances of seven possible vice presidential candidates.
Bernie Sanders – Odds 12.0
While Hillary Clinton’s long-term focus is on Donald Trump, a more pressing concern involves uniting her own party. Sanders has no realistic chance of converting the superdelegates as he aspires to, but he’s still threatening to take his fight all the way to what is, on paper, a contested convention.
Though his challenge is futile, the internal damage is potentially huge. Relations between Bernie’s largely independent, left-wing supporters and the so-called Democrat establishment have never been worse. These voters are far from certain to vote en masse for Clinton and plenty may be tempted by the other ‘outsider’ in the race, Trump.
What better way for Clinton to heal wounds and move forward than picking her former rival to be her running mate? That’s the theory but, in reality, this is a massive longshot. It surely makes more sense to pick someone who hasn’t been attacking the main candidate for months, and there are others who would better unite the party.