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| Former President Donald Trump (R-FL) |
The question when it comes to predicting whom will be Trump's running-mate is what does Trump really want in a VP? Usually when it comes to choosing your Vice President, you're trying to find a balance. Looking at Republican tickets, George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney because Cheney had more foreign policy experience. Ronald Reagan picked George HW Bush because he knew DC better and was a more moderate figure as Reagan had been criticized for his hard right views. Bob Dole was having trouble on his right flank, which Jack Kemp would help (the two men did not particularly like each other outside of that race). Even Donald Trump in 2016 picked Mike Pence to solidify his bonafides with the evangelical wing of the Republican Party.
I personally think all of that is out the window in 2024 though. Trump is looking for three things from a vice presidential nominee. First and foremost is someone who is loyal to him-a Trump running-mate who would be willing to try and buck the Constitution on his behalf (something that Pence refused to do on January 6th), and would be willing to back up Trump's lies. Second, they are going to continue to parrot & defend Trump's falsehoods, both around whether or not Trump lost the 2020 presidential election (he did) and by being willing to spread more lies in November if Trump loses the 2024 presidential election again in what is looking like a very close rematch with Joe Biden. And last, they need to be able to have proper MAGA credentials, potentially enough to be a good speaker throughout the fall given that Trump's cognitive and physical health are obviously on the decline, and Trump may be in jail during the RNC or after, so this person would have to be the keynote speaker on the stage. Essentially you're looking for someone craven, willing to lie, and who is unquestionably in Trump's camp...ideally at least with some political skill.
I will own that one of the biggest surprises looking at the list of potential candidates is that there are no celebrities on the reported shortlist. Conservative figures like Vivek Ramaswamy, Tucker Carlson, and Kari Lake, for example, are not current officeholders, but also...neither was Donald Trump when he ran. Most of the speculated shortlist is sitting officeholders, and largely male. Below, you're going to find the Top 10, and we're going to discuss both why Trump would pick this candidate, and what they do (and don't) bring to the conversation.
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| Ambassador Nikki Haley (R-SC) |
Nikki Haley is not going to be Trump's running-mate for a variety of reasons, but I don't feel A) like there's a major under-the-radar name that's going to actually get picked out of nowhere (names like John Ratcliffe, Maria Salazar, or Henry McMaster make sense in theory, but I don't think Trump cares enough to toss them into the ring this late in the way that Joe Biden did with Karen Bass in 2020). Haley I'm adding because she's going to be talked about until Trump is picked. She'd be a brilliant choice. She'd provide racial & gender balance to the ticket, and be a way to appease moderate & independent voters that Trump needs to win the election, including those that backed her in the primary. She also has genuine political skill (look at how well she did on Saturday Night Live during her campaign). Put it this way-if Joe Biden had had the primary run that Trump had, Haley would be in the Top 3 candidates to choose from just to shore up his base. I'm adding Haley here mostly, though, to illustrate how different Trump's choice this year is going to be. Logic & sense are out, even with Haley stating she'll support Trump in November (basically begging for an olive branch), and she's not going to be his choice, even though I do wonder if he takes a meeting with her before the announcement given her pathetic, late-breaking endorsement of him.
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| Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (I-HI) |
Gabbard (along with #7 on this list) operates in a very specific type of hyper-online Trump world selection, where a MAGA beloved figure is considered for the VP position. The MAGA movement is very online, as is Trump, and so someone like Gabbard makes sense. Gabbard's been very clear about her support for Trump, despite being a former Democratic congresswoman who endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 over Trump (ultimately why I don't think she'll be considered seriously for the position even if she's a safe bet for his cabinet). Gabbard is, like Haley, a woman, and in something that would be important for Trump, she's conventionally attractive. Trump likes to cast people from "central casting" (it's why he tended to like military leaders in his cabinet), and for women, that means someone slender with long hair and who conforms to traditional beauty standards. Also, Gabbard is one of the few VP contenders who wouldn't have to do much of an about-face to make sense with Trump's foreign policy view (again, something that will keep Nikki Haley out of this conversation, as Haley is a strong backer of NATO). Why she ultimately doesn't make sense is that she's too moderate (her views on abortion are to the left of the Republican mainstream, as are her past views on student loans, sex work legalization, & health care...though knowing Gabbard she'd happily change those views if it got her a promotion), and because she's a bit of a gadfly, particularly without a current House seat to give her credibility.
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| Sec. Ben Carson (R-FL) |
I'm keeping Ben Carson on this list for one reason-the media keeps adding him. Carson is supposedly (along with the Top 7) at least being researched by the Trump campaign according to media reports to be on the ticket, so he needs to be on this list, but I don't see what he adds to Trump 2024. I don't think any Black politician is going to do a lot for the Trump ticket; if he gains with voters of color (and polling shows he could) that's going to depend on Trump himself, not a racially diverse coalition for the GOP ticket. What Carson does do, though, is zap some of the energy for the GOP. Despite Carson being the only Republican since Jeb Bush to lead Trump in a primary poll (something I'm sure Trump has not forgotten), he's a lousy politician. He's a terrible public speaker, a bit odd at the stump, and boring. None of these are things that Trump wants to bring to MAGA crowds, and Carson would make an awful keynote Speaker on the off-chance Trump is in jail during the RNC (to the point where I think if it came down to that, Donald Trump, Jr. could end up giving the keynote). I think he would make sense for a cabinet position, but this VP option kind of reeks of Republicans saying "we should consider a Black Republican" and realizing there's not a lot of names on that list.
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| Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) |
One of those names, admittedly, is Byron Donalds, who along with Tulsi Gabbard fills the quotient of "MAGA favorite." Unlike Gabbard, Donalds is no one's definition of a moderate (there's nothing in his House voting record that says anything other than "hard right"). Donalds, though, is a terrible public speaker (Kamala Harris would eat him for breakfast in a debate), and has struggled with more mainstream news outlets. At one point in the past month Donalds praised the racist Jim Crow era of American history, and was eviscerated by MSNBC hosts like Al Sharpton & Joy Reid over it in interviews with the Florida congressman. Ultimately, it's not this that is going to cost him though (real talk-none of the people on this list are great in interviews save perhaps for Haley, mostly because they have to defend obvious lies that Trump perpetuates and they aren't good at it). What I think his biggest problem is that Trump doesn't want to associate with a certain type of MAGA loyalist, the ones who aren't humiliating themselves in the process. Trump clearly enjoys making the establishment, the establishment that wouldn't have taken him seriously pre-2015, bow to him, and Donalds comes from the Marjorie Taylor Greene or Sarah Palin wing of the party that genuinely loves Trump rather than just trying to cash in on his popularity. I ultimately think that true blind loyalty will cost him (I know that feels a bit unprofessional to try to get into Trump's psyche, but let's be real-does anyone think he's picking this VP contender based on whether the person would be a good president?).
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| Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) |
One of the more surprising things about Trump's VP search has been that no woman has risen to a clear spot that feels like they're seriously being considered. It doesn't help that potential Republicans like Nancy Mace, Kristi Noem, & Katie Britt have made way too many unforced errors, even for Trump, and cost themselves during the VP tryouts. The one name that comes up the most often, and if he picks a woman is probably whom it's going to be, is Elise Stefanik. Stefanik has spent much of the Trump era, particularly since he left office, pushing her MAGA support despite spending the Obama years as a relatively moderate figure in the House. Trump almost certainly would like her youth and the way she has become one of his bigger champions (particularly in beating Liz Cheney for the House Republican Conference Chair position). I don't think she gets the job for two reasons. First, I am increasingly skeptical that Trump wants to pick a woman. I think sometimes people assume his racist and misogynistic act is just for show, but I actually think it's real, and it's possible he won't want a woman as the one person in his administration he can't fire. And two, I don't think Stefanik looks the part of what Trump wants from a VP. Stefanik is not conventionally attractive in the way that someone like Nancy Mace or Tulsi Gabbard is. It feels icky to say out loud, but Trump has spent years validating women based solely on their appearance...do you really think that won't apply to the woman he'll have to stand next to for the next four years?
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| Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) |
We are now moving into the names that I think are more seriously being considered. Tim Scott is lower than most would put him-there are people who are convinced that, ultimately, he's going to be the choice. I think he makes a lot of sense. He's a popular Republican senator, is the most prominent Black politician in the Republican Party, and has spent most of the year kowtowing to Donald Trump despite spending last year running against him for the nomination. I'm keeping him lower for a couple of reasons. First, Scott more than any of the Top 5, has been a lousy defender of the MAGA crowds. He's not great on the stump and he's not good in interviews. He's also not conventionally what Trump looks for as good things in the mirror. He's not rich & he's not Ivy League-educated (both things that Trump sees as valuable in himself), and he's also relatively supportive of NATO (which is not the case for someone, like, say, the #1 guy on this list). Ultimately, though, if Scott isn't chosen I think it's because he won't pass the background check. Scott's personal life is odd. The almost 60-year-old man made public statements in the 1990's (when he was in his thirties) declaring himself a proud virgin, and there has been a lot of public speculation about his sexuality, even though he is currently engaged to a woman. This feels like something that Trump, a man with a libido that launched a thousand tabloid headlines in the 1990's, would want to distance himself from, and I suspect at the end of the day he will.
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| Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) |
Tom Cotton is not getting as much vetting as Tim Scott does by the media, and doesn't show up on as many lists as someone like Tim Scott, but I'll be real-I think he should. Cotton makes more sense for the Trump ticket than anyone in the Top 5. Cotton is a savvy campaigner (he beat an incumbent senator to win his current seat), a decent orator (even if you think what he's saying is awful, MAGA crowds would eat him up), and he has a lot of the things that Trump values in a male politician. He's a Harvard graduate, attractive, married with two kids, and has a background in the military. He's also a lawyer, which could help if Trump is in prison to sell the idea that he is "wrongfully convicted" better than those on the trail without law degrees. Cotton's biggest detriments are that he's extremely right-wing (maybe more so than Trump, though Trump's political philosophy is a shifting target), and would be a struggle to convince swing voters, specifically women, to get on board with him given his strident views on abortion and IVF. But honestly-if I were Trump, I'd probably pick Cotton-he makes the most sense for what he's trying to accomplish in November, and is loyal but with some of the pedigree that Trump desires.
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| Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) |
Marco Rubio has spent much of the year being the most likely choice for the Trump campaign, and it's worth noting that Trump ultimately picked the safe choice in 2016. It's possible that Trump will do the same in 2024, and Rubio would be that choice. Rubio is Latino, the only Latino politician on this list, and that is a demographic that could pay off if Trump can gain some support there, given that Trump's leads in Nevada & Arizona are largely dependent on him picking up some additional support with Latino voters compared to 2020. Like Cotton, Rubio is a lawyer, conventionally good-looking, and while he is not Ivy League-educated like Cotton & Trump, he is married with four children, and has spent decades in politics. If Trump wants to send a message that the Republican Party belongs to him, picking someone who at one point was a very vocal critic of Trump in 2016 but who now is willing to parrot the MAGA line would do that ("I am the only choice"). The things holding me back on Rubio are that he is not a great debater (Chris Christie ate him for lunch in 2016, which is why Rubio ended up losing that race, and Kamala Harris is, like Christie, a former prosecutor who could do the same), and that I don't think Trump likes him. Rubio's attacks on Trump were personal (going after the former president's manhood), and Trump has a long memory for such slights. Rubio is constitutionally an issue for the race (both men are current residents of the state of Florida, though Trump could move to New Jersey if that would help), but part of me wonders if Trump is stringing Rubio along one last time to ultimately take the goal that the Florida Senator so clearly got into politics to achieve (the White House) away from him, likely on Rubio's last shot at a national ticket.
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| Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) |
Burgum has emerged as the dark horse candidate that might actually deliver in the end. The low-key North Dakota governor is clearly someone that Trump has taken a shine to, and that makes sense: Burgum is in a lot of ways the definition of everything Trump likes in himself. He is, like Trump, very rich, and comes with a posh educational background (Stanford isn't technically Ivy League, but it's close enough no one will care). He's a very successful businessman, and someone who values money. He also is married to a conventionally attractive wife, one whom he married after his first marriage fell apart (just like Trump!), and while he did run against Trump in the primary, he was pretty innocuous in his attacks on him, and was such an asterisk in the race I doubt Trump cares he ran against him in the way he might've Scott or Haley. Burgum's foreign policy views are largely similar to Trump's (he's been sharply critical of the Biden administration's views on Iran & Ukraine). Honestly the only thing that makes me leery about Burgum is that he's an unknown. He doesn't have the national profile of a senator or a big-state governor, and I'm not sure what his speaking style will add to the conversation. But on-paper he makes a lot of sense, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him get picked.
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| Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) |
The #1 choice on this list fits all of the boxes I've discussed for Trump. JD Vance is an Ivy-League educated (he went to Yale) attorney, a young conservative who has had success as an author (his memoir was made into an Oscar-nominated movie), who also served in the Iraq War. He's establishment (just look at his past criticisms of Trump), but like Marco Rubio, he's bent over backward trying to track that back, so he has that sycophantic quality that Trump likes. He's young, married, and there are no rumors about his sexuality. He defeated a tough opponent in 2022 (a sitting congressman), and while he's not a great public speaker, he's better than a few of these figures in mainstream news interviews. He's not really fond of campaigning or fundraising (just ask Mitch McConnell), but at a national level that might change. The biggest deficit he has is his relative inexperience (he's only been a Senator for two years), but I don't know that Trump will care about that, and will likely be enamored with his pull-up-his-bootstraps story & Vance's ability to speak directly to MAGA crowds. Vance, I'll be honest, would be a rally good replacement surrogate for Trump at an RNC where Trump might not be able to attend; his book Hillbilly Elegy was pointed to repeatedly as an explanation for Trump's 2016 victory. There's not really any reason why he wouldn't make sense for Trump-if he's not picked, it'll be because Trump liked someone else more. But along with Tom Cotton and, of course, Nikki Haley, if I was Trump's advisor, I'd be pushing for Vance.
3 comments:
All these folks bending over backwards to suck up to Donald...I wonder what they do once he picks someone else (and once he hopefully loses in November)? Do they continue down this path, or go back to how they used to be?
I doubt they can ever go back. Trump bought the party, and even if he damages it...I don't know how you get it back. Also, it's very clear at this point that the party is susceptible to the next Trump. In a normal year a list like this would be a list of the 2028 contenders, but that list would need to include far more MAGA-friendly figures like Don Jr or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are honestly stronger bets for the ticket in 2028 than people want to admit.
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