Back on july 3 I wrote a diary prediting Trump would not have picked his running mate before today:
www.dailykos.com/…
It will be interesting if he does do it after 4pm to minimize news coverage. An announcement tomorrow or Sunday would also result in reduced attention to the selection, but he really is running out of time.
I am old enough to remember when presidential nominees waited until after they had been officially nominated at the convention before announcing their running mates, but neither party has done that since 1976.^ That the selection is coming this late is truly unexpected (even though I expected it), and would seem to show how desperate Trump his to allow someone else to be the center of attention for any period of time at all.
*Republican Gerald Ford was an incumbent that year but replaced his existing, appointed VP Nelson Rockerfeller with Bob Dole.