Breaking down Donald Trump’s top three VP finalists
The News
As Joe Biden takes up the headlines with his own campaign drama for a change, Donald Trump is facing his own, quieter debate: Who should he pick as his running mate?
The former president is nearing the July 15 deadline to announce who he’s tapped, and while he’s fueled speculation by suggesting over the last several months that his mind is made up, it remains unclear who (if anyone) he has officially decided on. What we do know — with the knowledge, of course, that Trump remains unpredictable — is that the list of options has narrowed to three.
The Candidates
J.D. Vance. The senator from Ohio has the backing of Don. Jr, who has privately and publicly pushed for his father to choose the MAGA-expert. Vance would be the best choice if Trump is looking for a vice presidential pick who can continue the movement beyond his second term.
He’s also, in recent years, become increasingly aligned with Trump’s unique brand of politics: Closing out the National Conservatism conference on Wednesday, the Ohio senator praised Trump for conquering the old, globalist GOP, a faction that he said had been “planning a return to implementing the Wall Street Journal’s editorial positions” until Trump returned to win the nomination.
Trump, as a person who values loyalty above all else, might be swayed by a person who is unlikely to push back on policy proposals and decision-making. In theory, he might also help in the all-important Rust Belt after winning an unusually tough midterm election against Democrat Tim Ryan in one of the most Trump-trending states.
Vance was a convert to MAGA — and the conversion happened under bright media lights. In 2016, as his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” became a runaway bestseller, Vance denounced the GOP nominee and said that he couldn’t possibly vote for him. In 2022, his Republican opponents in Ohio’s primary bashed him with the old quotes — but it took Trump’s official endorsement to get him through the race.
“He has a memory like a steel trap,” Vance said of Trump at Wednesday’s National Conservatism conference. “I almost wish his memory was as bad as Joe Biden’s, because he’d forget what I said about him in 2016.”
Doug Burgum. The North Dakota governor, who made little impact in the 2024 primary, has been far more visible as a Trump surrogate and potential VP. He would bring personal wealth to the ticket, estimated by Forbes at more than $100 million, and had barely been critical of Trump, even as a rival; he told “Meet the Press” in 2023 that he wouldn’t do business with Trump, but recanted.
NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch has advocated for Burgum, and Trump has called him a success, who “probably knows more about energy than anybody I know.”
But Burgum is the only candidate on the shortlist who’s signed a bill limiting abortion — a near-total ban in North Dakota, which he said in 2023 that he wouldn’t demand nationwide. That position aligned him with Trump, but on Wednesday, Trump said that the abortion ban was an “issue” for Burgum.
“I think Doug is great,” Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio. “He’s taken a pretty strong stance — or the state has. I don’t know if it’s Doug, but the state has.”
Marco Rubio. Like Vance, Rubio attacked Trump in 2016, ending his own primary campaign by calling the candidate a dangerous “con man” with small hands. Democrats have recycled those clips for years, portraying Rubio’s subsequent Trump support as convenient and insincere, all for a man whose “little Marco” nickname stuck.
But Rubio has the biggest win record of anyone on the shortlist, entering Miami politics in his 20s and humiliating then-Gov. Charlie Crist with his Tea Party-powered 2010 U.S. Senate campaign. He demolished well-funded Democratic challengers in 2016 and 2022, repositioning himself as a Trump ally, and more often than not aligning with him on foreign policy and immigration. At a time when the GOP is bullish on making inroads with Latino voters, he’s also just as comfortable defending Trump in Spanish-language and English-language media.
That hasn’t quieted every one of Rubio’s MAGA critics, who still recall his effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2013, which put him in conflict with future Trump administration figures like Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller. And he was also celebrated by more hawkish Republicans who would go on to oppose Trump.
“He represents the neocon, war-mongering establishment of Washington D.C., which stands diametrically opposed to the very policies that President Trump has always stood for,” former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard told Megyn Kelly this week. (Gabbard, who endorsed Biden in 2020, has undergone her own MAGA conversion.)
The rest. There’s still, of course, the chance Trump pivots and picks some of his other early options: Sen. Tim Scott is one of the few former primary opponents who didn’t manage to anger Trump, and could bring in Black voters; former Housing Secretary Ben Carson has long been an ally of Trump’s, and New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik was an early entry on his VP list.
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