If President Trump Runs For Office In 2024 Who Will Be His Running Mate?

I have written several articles on our President Trump. A list of the links have been provided at the bottom of this article for your convenience. This article will, however address different aspects on President Trump’s Presidency.

This article is going to be a sister article to the one I am going to post simultaneously, ” Trump For 2024? I have read several articles written on the subject on who would be his running mate if he ran for office in 2024. I know it is very early and is highly subject to change. But it is my blog and I can post what I want, and besides anybody that is a Trumper would love to know who is running mate will be. Don’t deny it, you know it is true. You also can’t wait till 2024 rolls around and you probably wish you could just jump ahead in time and bypass all the BS that we are going to have to endure the next 3 or so years.

So in this article I am going to combine all the selections from each article, so we will now have a super list of possible running mates. I am doing this so you won’t have to read all those articles. You can just read my article instead.

Until January 6th of 2021, my answer and everybody else’s answer would have been Mike Pence. He did a great job. He supported him every step of the way. But then sensing defeat, he jumped off the Trump wagon and stabbed him in the back. So, should Trump forgive him and give him a second chance? I say hell no! Besides a leopard can’t change his spots. What is to say that he won’t do it again when the chips are down. I will put him on the list, but the chances of him being selected by Trump are slim to none, in my humble opinion. Besides I don’t really know if he wants it anyway.

Some sources believe Kristi Noem is a potential running mate in 2024, as she’s clearly propped herself up in the national spotlight in recent months through her loyalty to Trump on his campaign trail and her devoted efforts to reject the certification of the 2020 election results. The Trump family recognizes Noem’s support, as Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, hosted a fundraiser for the governor at Trump’s Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, last week amid chatter over her own 2024 White House bid. Alyssa Farah, a former communications director for Trump, recently told Bloomberg Radio’s Sound On program that Noem is reportedly at the top of the vice-presidential shortlist. “Having [Noem] on a ticket might help Trump with suburban women, who were apparently turned off by Trump,” Hagle, said. Farah echoed these remarks, noting that Noem as a vice president could appeal to female Republican and Independent voters that he lost in the 2020 election.

Another pick could be Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the only Black Republican in the upper chamber, who has backed Trump a number of times during his presidency. Last week, the former president also publicly endorsed Scott’s reelection bid.

“My sense is that Tim Scott would be an excellent pick for a running mate. He seemed to pop up on the radar over the summer in a big way during the conversations about police reform. He also has the potential to neutralize or otherwise offset a lot of Trump’s negatives, but it isn’t clear to me that this would add up to additional gains in support from minority communities,” Jacob Neiheisel, a campaign expert and associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo, said. But a political marriage between him and Trump would be uneasy. Scott did not vote to reject either Arizona or Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, and he’s been a frequent critic of Trump’s flirtations with white nationalism. There are a myriad of reasons why it makes sense for Scott to be on a Republican presidential ticket; the path to him sharing a ticket with Trump, however, is a bit more fraught. If Trump wants to nominate a non-white Republican who’s been a little more loyal to him, he could always opt for Florida’s Marco Rubio, who after being a sharp critic of Trump in the 2016 primaries, became one of his more high profile apologists. A Rubio nomination could help shift South Florida from light blue to light red in 2024, lock the state up for Trump, and also expand the GOP’s outreach efforts to Latino voters. If Trump is really left without many friends in 2024, he could also turn to Lindsey Graham of South Carolina whose relationship with Trump has followed a similar trajectory to Rubio’s. Though Graham’s age and ties to Bush-era neoconservatives may make him a non-starter electorally.

Experts have also noted that “running mates have very little direct effect on voters,” since voters tend to base voting decisions on the presidential candidate, rather than the vice-presidential candidate.

So, if Trump and his team are weighing running mate candidates purely off how they can rally lost supporters from the 2020 election, then Trump will need to do much more to convince Americans to line up behind his 2024 White House bid.

Neiheisel said he thinks “there is little direct effect of the VP pick on electoral success, although a highly qualified running mate probably makes a difference. Conditional on quality, I’m not sure we can point to many qualities of a VP pick that would help a nominee gain back lost ground among the voters.”

Which brings us to the other memorable and perhaps more electorally-motivated diplomat from the Trump administration: his first ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. Haley, an Indian-American, was the first female governor of South Carolina, and is unique among former Trump administration figures in that she left her office as United Nations ambassador seemingly on good terms and even spoke at the Republican National Convention in his favor (as did everyone at the convention, so being allowed to speak at all reflects well on her relationship with Trump). Haley has quietly critiqued Trump on some points, but publicly she stresses her loyalty to the man, remarking in her memoir that early in the administration, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to bring her on their side to “save the country” by resisting Trump, but she refused to do. After the 2020 election, Haley remained hushed (and therefore complicit) in regards to Trump’s claims of a stolen election and his attempts to undermine it. After the January 6 storming of the Capitol, Haley criticized Trump (in closed-door remarks), but she also said that Twitter blocking Trump was akin to “what happens in China.” To put it mildly, Haley is playing every side of the GOP. Mainstream Republicans like her for her solid conservative credentials and reputation, Trump and his posse appreciate a woman of color’s supposed reverence for the president, and the media magnify her electability as a more compassionate candidate for the party suffering from a reputation of being dominated by white men.

Trump’s second (and most loyal) Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is unique in his ability to combine Trump’s ideology and style with a respectable and technocratic position and personality. This is a choice of convenience and adaptation rather than one of deeply held conviction, as the former Army officer turned Republican Congressman from Kansas is not very similar to Trump in terms of mercurial governance or volatile rhetoric. Pompeo is much more a creature of Washington than Trump, which may make them unlikely bedfellows. But in truth, Pompeo is one of the strongest candidates to display what Trump and his supporters may see as the administration’s success. Trump has received praise from unlikely sources for his foreign policy and Pompeo is well positioned to provide credibility and experience, while moulding to Trump’s messaging and policy goals.

The prospects on Trump-Pompeo really depend on how you view Trump and his aims. If Trump wants to get elected to enact his policies and crusade for what he views as right, Pompeo is the ideal choice. But if Trump uses his described policies and rhetoric simply as a means to get elected, an end in itself, then Pompeo is not the choice for him. This is not to say either philosophy is correct. A foundational question in political science rests on whether politicians run for office to support policies (probably, initially at least), or support policies simply to get in office (probably, after they’ve been elected before).

While most Senate Republicans dropped their objections to the electoral vote count after the riot at the Capitol, Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri stood steadfastly by President Trump’s baseless accusations of voter fraud. While this appears to have hurt them reputationally and financially in the short term, it could certainly help them in 2024 if the Republican base decides they want a Trump redux. Although both are likely candidates in a Trumpless field (recall that Cruz came in second place in the 2016 primary), the assumption is that Trump values loyalty above all else, and few have been more loyal in the waning days of his administration than Cruz and Hawley.

The assumption is that Trump values loyalty above all else, and few have been more loyal in the waning days of his administration than Cruz and Hawley.

Cruz probably makes the most sense from an electoral strategy standpoint — Trump made gains among Latino voters in 2020, and nominating a Cuban Texan could appeal to precincts in the Rio Grande Valley and South Florida that have been traditionally Democratic constituencies. But while Cruz is a former constitutional conservative who now seems to bend whichever way the wind blows, Hawley has taken reliably Trumpian position on abortion, China, and trade from day one. If Trump truly wants to rebrand the Republican Party in his image, his best bet is probably Hawley who, in addition to concurring with Trump’s request for $2000 coronavirus relief checks, will be only 43 in 2024, and could carry the Trump banner into future presidential bids himself.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas checks a lot of the same boxes as Hawley. He seconded Trump’s suggestion that the United States buy Greenland and seemed to delight at “owning the libs” at the “failing” New York Times after the ensuing controversy surrounded by his op-ed in favor of using the military to put down this summer’s unrest. He is also another 2024 aspirant, but his early opposition to overturning the electoral college vote docks him loyalty points. His latest hobby horse is arguing any impeachment trial that would take place after Trump leaves office would be unconstitutional, so he may end up back in the soon-to-be-former president’s good graces sooner rather than later.

Rick Scott is another Republican senator frequently floated as a 2024 candidate, and while his ability to self-fund and his electoral success in Florida (he was a two term governor before being elected to the Senate) make him an appealing choice, he’s had a rough month. The new chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee had to endure the indignity of his party losing both Georgia Senate seats on only his third day on the job, and on his fourth day of the job he voted to reject Pennsylvania’s electoral votes. That’s a big problem, because it means that the big corporate donors who have pledged not to donate to candidates who voted to reject 2020’s electoral votes may opt not to donate to him or the NRSC. Still, these things may not matter as much on a presidential ticket, where Scott can help bring some more traditional conservatives back into the Trump camp. Although the fact that he and Trump will be a combined 150 years old in 2024, and that one of them would have to change their state of residence for electors in Florida to legally vote for both of them, are also points against him.

If there’s one place in Washington where Donald Trump’s legacy will be felt after he leaves office, it’ll probably be in the House of Representatives where an entire generation of early career politicians have made a name for themselves by defending the 45th president and adopting his brand of politics as their own. Perhaps the most high profile among them is Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has a reputation as one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in Congress. Look at any of the many Trump-related controversies over the last four years and you’ll likely find Gaetz on a cable news channel or on Twitter acting as the president’s unofficial PR arm. His most high-profile stunt was probably his storming of the SCIF8 during the testimony from a Pentagon official as part of the Trump impeachment inquiry, which drew the ire of even Trump ally Lindsey Graham. Gaetz’s support of the president has persisted into the lame duck period, during which Gaetz has parroted Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and alleged that some of the rioters who stormed the Capitol were Antifa members. Gaetz’s compatibility with Trump on a political level is undeniable, and his youth (he’ll be 42 in 2024) and penchant for brand building make him a natural bridge to a new generation of Trump Republicans. While he’s still a backbencher, there’s still plenty of time for him to make a move (including an unlikely run for the Senate in 2022) to raise his profile. Like fellow Floridians Rick Scott or Marco Rubio, either Gaetz or Trump would have to leave Florida for them to become a viable presidential ticket, but seeing as Gaetz floated the idea of moving to Alabama for a day to run for the Senate in 2020, I’m sure he’d be happy to acquiesce.

Dan Crenshaw of Texas is another stalwart Trump defender who, on paper, is a much more appealing choice than Gaetz. A photogenic retired Navy SEAL, he first came to wider national attention after appearing on Saturday Night Live to respond to Pete Davidson’s controversial jokes about Crenshaw’s eyepatch (he lost his right eye while serving in the War in Afghanistan), and has crafted an online personality for himself via his Twitter account and action movie-esque campaign ads. A fresh face from a large and rapidly changing state is an appealing choice for a running mate, but Crenshaw has started to break with Trump in recent weeks. While he initially filed an amicus brief in support of Texas’s lawsuit to overturn Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, he voted against overturning those same votes after the riot in the Capitol, and defended House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump. Like Gaetz, he probably needs to build up a more substantive legislative record separate from his antics and advertisements for him to be taken seriously as a vice presidential contender by the party elite.

Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas. Jackson served as Physician to the President until 2018, when Trump nominated him as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Jackson’s nomination was quickly sunk by allegations that he drank on the job and improperly handed out medications, prompting him to withdraw his nomination and set his eyes on Congress instead. He centered his campaign around his closeness to Trump and even went as far as to claim that Obama illegally spied on the Trump campaign. Again, Jackson is a hell of a longshot, but an indispensable part of the Trump brand is a sense of victimhood and aggrievedness, which Jackson will be able to play into with his failed cabinet appointment. If high profile Republicans defect from another Trump nomination and all of the prime choices are apprehensive to join the ticket, why shouldn’t Trump turn to someone who’s been a friend?

DeSantis, 42, has fast emerged as a Republican rising star. He finished second in the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll in February behind Trump, and some see him as the best positioned heir to the Trump mantle.

If Trump doesn’t run again, “I think he’s the odds-on favorite to be the next president,” Florida Republican Party chair and state Sen. Joe Gruters told NBC News of DeSantis.

DeSantis’ appeal is due in part to his combative relationship with the news media — he regularly spars with journalists, interrupting or pushing back against their questions in a way Trump fans would appreciate — and also because of his handling of the pandemic.

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, DeSantis wrote that Florida’s less-restrictive response to COVID-19 bucked faulty intel from “the elites” and the state still ended up with “comparatively low unemployment, and per capita COVID mortality below the national average.” Florida’s COVID-19 death rate per 100,000 people is similar to California and Ohio, and so far, about 33,500 Floridians have died from the virus. New research in the American Journal of Public Health suggests the state is undercounting COVID-19 deaths.

DeSantis got his start in politics in the U.S. House in 2012, where he served three terms before running for governor in 2018. His bid got a big boost from Trump, whose endorsement propelled DeSantis over a better-funded Republican rival. DeSantis graduated from Yale and Harvard Law School and served as a judge advocate general, or JAG, in the U.S. Navy. He and wife Casey, a former local TV news host, have three children.

Author Tomi T. Ahonen believes that former U.S. President Donald Trump will likely select South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham as his running mate in his purported 2024 presidential bid. Pence won’t be his Veep. It is FOREVER to 2024, but probably Trump’s ‘most trusted’ VP choice right now, the front runner is… yes #LeningradLindsey Graham,” he wrote in a Twitter thread posted on Wednesday morning.

Graham notably ran a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, which ultimately saw Trump emerge victorious.

Despite initially being critical of the real estate mogul, Graham has grown into one of Trump’s most loyal allies. According to CNN, he is one of Trump’s “most vociferous defenders” and continued to support him through the many controversies that rocked his presidential term.

Notably, Graham used his power in the Senate to defend Trump amid the first impeachment probe into the former president for his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Elsewhere during the inquiry, Graham took aim at Democrat Joe Biden for his alleged business dealings in Ukraine while he was the vice president during Barack Obama’s administration.

“The best vice-presidential candidates are public figures who are sufficiently able to serve as president and are viewed as plausible presidents by their party’s reachable voters and whose selection sends appealing messages about the presidential candidate who selects them,” Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential expert and professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University School of Law, said.

Bloomberg reported, however, that no serious consideration of a running mate has been decided yet, and if Trump ultimately decides to run, he’ll wait until the summer of 2023 to make the announcement.

But the longer Trump waits to make the formal announcement, the tighter he will effectively freeze the presidential playing field, as there are nearly a dozen rumored candidates eyeing a run, including Noem, Haley and Pence.

The former president’s most recent hints at another White House run was at the Conservative Political Action Conference last Sunday, where he echoed voter fraud claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him.

Let’s say this upfront: Donald Trump is almost certainly not going to run for reelection with a member of his own family on the ticket. The chances of this are overhyped, overrated, and overblown. Yes, Trump made his children and their spouses key figures in his campaign and in his administration, but it’s worth noting that he never 1) nominated them for any Senate-confirmable position; 2) deployed them in any legal capacity (unlike other nepotistic but equally incompetent defenders, like say, Rudy Giuliani); or 3) seriously utilized them in a congressional-relations or domestic capacity. They were outsourced to campaigning, defending the patriarch on the airwaves, or a “Middle East peace plan” that even Trump did not seem to care strongly about.

These three things matter because they indicate a lack of domestic, inter-governmental, and administrative efficacy. Jared Kushner is not destined to run for governor of New York, Ivanka Trump is not equipped to negotiate with congressional leaders, and Eric Trump is not capable of running a government department. The chances of any of them sailing through even a Republican-controlled Senate and landing in a cushy ambassadorship, let alone a technocratic role like Secretary of the Treasury are slim to none. It’s a bad look, and Trump even somewhat conceded this during the brief stint where he was considering Ivanka to lead the World Bank. “If I did, they’d say nepotism, when it would’ve had nothing to do with nepotism,” were Trump’s sentiments, despite his insistence that Ivanka was uniquely qualified because “she’s very good with numbers.”

So, why include the Trump clan at all in our listing here? Because if the goal is truly to remake the Republican Party in Trump’s image, guarantee loyalty and absolute devotion, while consecrating the Trump family as synonymous with a Republican dynasty, choosing his family is one of the surest and most egregious ways to do it. It falls squarely outside of any norms or traditions in the American political system, no matter how controversial John F. Kennedy appointing his brother Robert as attorney general may have been. If Trump can sail through the 2024 Republican primary and seamlessly retain control and command of attention during the Biden administration, that may be the only situation in which a Trump-Trump ticket has a chance to emerge. Senate confirmation isn’t necessary to choose a running mate, so a pluralistic primary with a populist winner-takes-all election that the Republican Party thrives on is the only way we could seriously see a full Trump family takeover. Just remember that a lot of Republican interests, including Republicans in power, would have to resolve themselves to this, or at least be willing to do what they did for much of Trump’s four years in office, and quietly accept yet another break in democratic norms in the name of electoral benefit. This is why the primary itself is the key factor in whether the GOP becomes the all-encompassing party of Trump, or some derivation of him with a more compassionate approach.

Former President Donald Trump, in a podcast interview released on March 22, 2021, listed a number of Republicans he sees as potential successors if he opts not to run for the White House again, which he said he is still considering.

KEY FACTS

Trump said on “The Truth with Lisa Boothe,” a new conservative podcast, that the GOP is “stacked” and has a “pretty deep bench” of potential presidential hopefuls, but didn’t say whether he’ll mount a bid, stating, “I’ll make that decision some time later.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has achieved conservative stardom for his willingness to shrug off expert advice on the coronavirus pandemic and keep his state mostly open, is “doing a really good job in Florida,” Trump said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who led the charge to object to President Joe Biden’s electors on Jan. 6 and has been vocal about Trump’s twitter ban and alleged “censorship” by tech companies, was praised by Trump as showing “some real courage in going after big tech.”

Trump said he and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had “rather violent and vicious” clashes during the 2016 GOP primary, but said their relationship has “simmered down” since Cruz positioned himself as a firm Trump ally, calling the Texas senator “terrific.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), another Republican who largely fell behind Trump after facing his ridicule during the 2016 primary and who has more recently trained his fire on Dr. Anthony Fauci, “has been great,” Trump said.

Trump also pointed to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who, like DeSantis, has resisted instituting strict measures to crack down on coronavirus, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary and current candidate for Arkansas governor.

BIG NUMBER

19%. That’s the share of Republican primary voters who said in a survey by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio released earlier this month that former Vice President Mike Pence would be their choice in 2024 if Trump doesn’t run, just ahead of DeSantis at 17%. Cruz garnered 13%, while Noem was at 4% and Hawley at just 2%.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

Trump’s only mention of his ex-vice president was in the form of criticism for his refusal to try to overturn the election on Jan. 6 – which he lacked the ability to do. “It’s too bad Mike Pence didn’t go back, because you would have had a much different result,” Trump said, falsely claiming Pence “could have said, ‘I’m sorry, but this was not approved by the state legislature.’”

If Trump runs once more in 2024, don’t expect any of his primary opponents to get picked as his running mate. Trump’s not one for letting things go and putting someone who challenged him in a position of power. This is reason alone to be skeptical of the senators we’ve listed, who are more preoccupied with running for president themselves and see supporting Trump as a means to that end. The party will push back a lot more on a dynasty ticket than they will on picking a younger Trump true believer, but picking a devout governor or outsider in the vein of Trump may offer the best of all worlds. However, if Trump enters the race and clears the field, as he had high prospects for before the attack on the Capitol, there will be a broader slate of options, and some of the more loyal senators may be able to bridge Trump’s good graces with the support of those who have been leading the resistance to Biden’s agenda in his absence in government.

Finally, take note of how a potential candidate Trump exhibits himself. If he spends the next two years claiming the election was stolen from him, defending pardoning his cronies and supporters, and burning every bridge with a party hesitant to fully break from him, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and the senators are out of the running. He’ll have to sink to the depths of those who remain devoted to his lost cause and tear a hole in the Republican Party once more. Trump’s campaign in 2020 was, to be generous, light on policy and lacked any overarching message other than the radical left destroying the country and making it worse, which is a hard message to deliver when you’re literally the president. But if Trump goes back to his 2016 campaign playbook and runs on a concrete message of election fraud, an immigration crisis, and arguing that he alone can save the country as an outsider, the Republican Party can be coerced and once more assimilated, rather than annihilated in his path. In this case, the premise in reuniting the dream team, running a more electable ticket, or hand-picking a successor to his legacy from the legion of mainstream Republicans who stood by him once and may do so again, will seem ever more apparent.

This list is a fairly complete based on the articles that I have read. There is little information on some of the individuals that I listed on the list of possible running mates, because they were only mentioned in passing by President Trump. I also included a slim and none section list. Many of the names on this I did not bother discussing them at all. Because the chances of them being chosen are virtually zero. Only time will tell what will happen. All I know is that we are in for a bumpy ride.

Running Mate List:

Ron DeSantis

Kristi Noem

Tim Scott

Nikki Haley

Mike Pompeo

Tom Cotton

Ted Cruz

Josh Hawley

Rick Scott

Dan Crenshaw

Lindsey Graham

Dr. Rand Paul

Dr. Ben Carson

Ron Johnson

Sarah Huckabee

Slim And None

Matt Gaetz

Mike Pence

Ronny Jackson

Jared Kushner

Ivanka Trump

Eric Trump

Candace Owens

Donald Trump Jr.

Tucker Carlson

Sean Hannity

Resources

nationalinterest.org, “Who Would Donald Trump Pick as His Running Mate in 2024?,” By Rachel Bucchino; thepostrider.com, “If Trump Runs in 2024, Who Will Be His Running Mate?,” By Lars Emerson and Michael Lovito; desert.com, “A way too early guide to the 2024 Republican primary: The ‘invisible primary’ is underway and here’s a list of potential contenders, based on early polling, interviews with Republican donors and strategists and results from online political betting markets,” By D. Hunter Schwartz; newsweek.com, “Donald Trump Picking Family As 2024 Running Mate Would Risk Losing GOP Voters,” By Jacob Jarvis; conservativehq.org, “The Right Resistance: 2024, Trump’s running mate, and the case for GOP-style identity politics,” By Jeffrey A. Rendall; inquisitr.com, ” Donald Trump Will Likely Choose Lindsey Graham As 2024 Running Mate, Author Says,” By Tyler MacDonald; dailymail.com, “Donald Trump is ‘considering a 2024 run for the White House without Mike Pence as his running mate – instead mulling a black person or woman on his ticket’,” By Rachel Sharp; forbes.com, “Trump Reveals List Of Republicans He Sees As Potential Successors,” By Andrew Solender;

Common Sense and Ramblings In America

If President Trump Runs For Office In 2024 Who Will Be His Running Mate?

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