ProfHansNoel

Ah yes. I remember EdgePunk311 well. Good to hear from you. :)

1. Every state has different rules, and so there may be some detail I'm not aware of in some state. But remember this is the Electoral College. So voters are not technically electing the candidate. They are electing Electors pledged to vote for their party's nominee. (Some states' rules do specify the name of the candidate, but in the recent Chiafalo v. Washington case, the Court pointed out that they did not want to tie Electors hands in the case where the candidate was incapacitated.) So when the Electors meet, they would vote for the party's candidate.

2. There's actually some dispute about the boundaries of the pardon power. But politically, I think that would be a nightmare for Pence and for Trump. It implies that Trump is guilty of something. And it means Pence is doing more with his temporary power than just keeping the lights on, which is what we expect of someone in that role.

I think the evidence is mixed. The assassination attempt on Reagan definitely energized support for him. But that's different from becoming sick. The shoe throwing was I think not that serious and had no detectible effects.

I think in this case, one thing it does is it makes people think about COVID more. Polls suggest most voters don’t think the president has handled the pandemic well. If they are thinking about that when they vote, they are less likely to support him. As long as he is sick, the news is talking about COVID and about Trump’s COVID policies, and that's not good for his favorability.

They are not obligated to pick Pence.

But Pence is the natural choice. If the RNC has to scramble to pick someone at the last minute, they'll need to act fast. Pence is the focal point. It would take a lot of work to convince everyone to go to someone else. That's not impossible, but Pence would presumably be not only the most obvious choice, but the acting or newly selected president via the 25th Amendment. So that's where I'd start if I were on the RNC and trying to make a choice.

Trump's already nominated her, so no. And at any rate, presumably a President Pence would support her continued nomination.

What might conceivably matter, however, is that there seem to be a few senators who have been exposed to COVID recently. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah tested postive. Others have been near Lee or near the president or others. So that could slow things down. Mitch McConnell says he is not going to slow the process, while Senate Democrats are calling for a delay for safety concerns. But they have a partisan motivation for a delay as well, and Republicans have a partisan motivation not to delay.

I don't think it would have a huge impact.

Trump is polarizing, but also our politics are in general polarized right now. So whomever else is on the ticket would probably also be polarizing. Polling suggests, for example, that if anything, Biden would do even better against Pence than he does against Trump.

Some Never Trump Republicans might switch, but we don't think there are really that many of them. And some of them are frustrated with the rest of the party as well.