Kamala Harris has one job: Persuading currently undecided, indifferent, or loosely Trump-attached voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to vote for her rather than Donald Trump (or Robert F. “Brain Worm” Kennedy Jr.).

So what will change these people’s minds? Well, that is the $10 billion question. But if they’re like other swing voters who’ve been surveyed and focus-grouped and interviewed in the past, the answer is something like: They want to vote for someone who isn’t too partisan but also isn’t necessarily in the center of every issue—lefty economic ideas do fine with them—and who seems like someone you could have a beer with but who also possesses a certain presidential dignity and vitality. Someone strong but unifying, as well as practical and possessing an intrinsic ability to improve the economy.

The top priority for Harris is convincing people that she is that person herself, of course, with her own words and advertisements. But she also gets to pick a vice presidential nominee—and according to some of the political-science research into the matter, that choice will likely be more important as a signal about herself than as a play to win any given state.

With this in mind, the choice is clear: She should select Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as her running mate.

The most important thing to know about Beshear—and the only thing Harris would really need voters to know about him—is easy to explain. He is, despite being a Democrat, popular in Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump won by 26 points in 2020. (Beshear won reelection in 2023 by 5 points, and his approval rating in Morning Consult’s latest data was 67 percent.) That would be the purpose of this pick: associating herself with one of........

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