I'm terrible at making predictions. I fully expected Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 presidential election and for Joe Biden to be off the 2024 Democratic ballot by now.

And so, when I was asked during an interview Monday morning with a Los Angeles-based television network to predict who former president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump would choose as his running mate, I winced. The anchor asked which of three leading contenders at the time — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio — was most likely to get the nod.

I started off by explaining why neither Burgum nor Rubio was in a strong position to get onto the ticket.

The Burgum explanation was easy. The soft-spoken governor's main appeal seemed to be that he could moderate Trump. But after the assassination attempt on Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, the last thing that Republican voters want is for their soon-to-be nominee to be "moderated." They want Trump to double down on his bombastic style and project strength and resilience. Burgum couldn't help with that.

The reasoning for not choosing Rubio was more complicated, I said. The Florida senator's stock is overrated — especially this year, with Trump as the presumptive nominee. Put aside for a minute the other two strikes against him: Trump doesn't need help to win the Sunshine State, and because he and Rubio both reside in Florida, electors from that state wouldn't be able to vote for the ticket under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.

But there are two other reasons Rubio wasn't a more desirable pick this year: geography and Trump. If a major argument in favor of Rubio getting selected was that the Floridian could help Republicans get the Latino vote, that would seem to be a non-issue, given that Trump tends to do well with Latinos. In May, a New York Times/Siena College survey found Trump and Biden tied with Latino voters with each getting 31%. Fourteen percent supported independent candidate Robert Kennedy.

Besides, while Latino Republicans remain bullish on the Cuban American senator, I've seen no evidence in my reporting over the years that those positive feelings about Rubio transfer to Mexican Americans who live in battleground states such as Arizona or Nevada. But not to worry, Republicans. Trump is leading Biden with voters overall in both those states, according to the Times/Siena College poll.

As for the second reason, when Trump and Rubio faced off for the Republican nomination in 2016, things got ugly. Trump dismissively referred to Rubio as "little Marco"; the senator responded by suggesting that Trump would have gotten nowhere in life without the benefit of his father's money. All that made for some damning video clips that would surely have found their way into Democratic campaign commercials if Rubio had been chosen to join the ticket.

And so, I told the anchor, "I'd go with J.D. Vance."

Of course, so did Trump. The 39-year-old checks a lot of boxes for the presumptive Republican nominee. The choice is exciting, which is already helping to stir the crowd gathered at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Vance is young, which helps frame this choice as laying the groundwork for the future. While Ohio is safely in the Republican column at the moment, according to polls, the fact that Vance is from the Midwest could help him appeal to voters in other nearby Rust Belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — all of which are crucial battleground states. Also, like Trump, Vance has Ivy League credentials, as a graduate of Yale Law School. Trump has spent his life as a businessman around banks and the financial industry, and so it didn't hurt Vance's prospects that the senator had a stint as a venture capitalist. Vance has solid contacts in normally liberal Silicon Valley, and while he is not a billionaire, he seems to have a couple of them on speed-dial.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly at the moment, Vance is a former Marine. Who better to stand next to Trump on stage in the aftermath of an assassination attempt? Right now, the Republicans want to project toughness and the feeling that they won't back down no matter what gets thrown at them — including bullets.

All in all, Vance is an excellent choice for Trump. As for whether he would be a good vice president, or whether Trump would treat him better than he did the last one? That remains to be seen.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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