I don’t think the VP pick mattered one bit.
So far for me, an NPR commentator said it best. It was a vibe or feeling election, but not like we thought. A lot of Trump voters who were polled expressed nothing more than a “feeling” that a Trump presidency would bring change. For the past two years they’ve felt the difficulty in buying homes, cars, groceries, and other items, and simply felt like a vote for the other party would be the best way to somehow change that, without any ability to articulate something they’ve heard from Trump that would specifically bring about that change. They don’t even understand the tariff argument. And some said they didn’t even believe the no-tax-tips thing.
The voters who swung for Trump simply looked at their own personal financial situation, felt a pinch over the past couple years, and felt like putting the other party in power could change that. For those voters, if it was the other way around and a Republican was the incumbent, they would’ve voted for the other guy.
Beshear or Shapiro wouldn’t have changed that.