The surveys smile at him. Financial contributions to his campaign have become a flood of money following his conviction in a fraud trial. He has practically the entire party behind him, with the ranks tight. He has shown that there is no scandal … that I can with him. And his next decision on the way to a White House in which he sees himself as a tenant again in January is to see who is going to be his number two.
Donald J. Trump’s campaign has already requested documentation from a series of possible vice presidential candidates, as they have admitted in recent days. Among the finalists are great critics turned loyal allies, all of them prominent figures within the new Republican Party with extensive experience on Capitol Hill. This list of possible running mates reflects Trump’s effort to balance his populist influence with a broader base of support and consolidate his position ahead of the November elections.
The first thing Trump wants is a demonstration of almost blind loyalty. The reason is that his number two between 2017 and 2021, Mike Pence, ended up distancing himself from him when he pressured him to have “courage” and refuse to validate the results of the 2016 elections due to a series of false allegations of fraud. election that the courts have rejected time and time again. Even when a mob ransacked the Capitol shouting that he was going to hang Pence, Trump never forgave him for his decision and has made him an outlaw in the party he aspired to lead after being governor of the state of Indiana.
The candidates with the most candidates at this time are two senators: Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio. The two are converts to Trumpism, they harshly criticized the boss before 2017, but today they are among his greatest defenders, even after his conviction, which they have criticized for being political persecution. Both of them, along with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, have been asked by the former president’s campaign for reports and personal data to verify background information and all the paperwork necessary for this process.
Converted critics
Vance is from Ohio. In 2016 she published a book titled ‘Hillbily, rural elegy’, which became a phenomenon for explaining the disaffection of impoverished rural and industrial America with globalism and political elites. Netflix even adapted it to film, with performances by Amy Adams and Glenn Close. In 2020 he won the primaries and Senate elections and there he has gone from critic of Trump to admirer and defender without nuances or qualms. He is today one of his biggest defenders on television, someone who translates Trumpism with an impeccable image and great eloquence.
In the case of Rubio, Trump has the option of someone who mobilizes the Latino vote, especially the Cuban, a community to which the senator belongs, and from Florida. Rubio has been a rising star for nearly two decades, and has the advantage that he is someone well-versed in foreign policy who speaks perfect Spanish. His main problem is that in the 2016 presidential primaries he was very, very critical of Trump, accusing him of being an orange-tinted provocateur, who had tiny hands – something that bothers the former president a lot – and among whose great achievements he only had bankruptcies. Trump did not hesitate, and responded with one of his nicknames. He called him “little Marco.” Such attacks are gold for the Democratic campaign, and are undoubtedly an element to be considered by the Republican campaign. He also has the impediment that both are registered in Florida, and the law says that the two candidates for president and vice president for a party cannot be from the same electoral district. Rubio should look for another state or Trump should return to New York, where he was registered in 2015.
He third candidate with more integers is the Governor Burgum, as leaked by the Trump campaign. He is someone unknown, who would be the first vice president of his state, North Dakota, which barely has 779,000 inhabitants. He ran for his party’s primary and quietly withdrew without insulting Trump. That brought him closer to the candidate, who sees him as someone who would not overshadow him, someone who would be a safe bet very much in line with what Mike Pence was in 2016.
According to Michael Bender, who is a political correspondent for ‘The New York Times’, Trump is looking for someone who “shows loyalty but does not overshadow him, someone who is not actively seeking to promote his own image, since Trump is not looking for a successor, He is not one of those presidential candidates who is looking for someone who is going to take over, especially in a second term, he wants someone who has a good image, who appears on television, who is good, but not too good.
Aware that the great attraction in his candidacy is himself, Trump is also looking for someone who is unrelated to scandals. The case of the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, is a clear example. She was one of the great candidates, she appeared at several rallies, she seemed to be the one who had the most integers. First, a series of scandals and accusations of her infidelity did her relative, but not mortal, damage. Her actual blow was self-inflicted; in a recent memoir she told a strange anecdote of how she killed a pet dog she had because it wasn’t aggressive enough. That has taken her ahead of her, and the candidate has marked distances with little consideration.
At one point, Trump considered electing a woman, to gain some of the female vote, which has swung more towards Biden and the Democrats after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that annulled the right to abort until the fetus is viable. There are still some women on the former president’s radar, like the New York representative Elise Stefanikbut has not received any request for information from the campaign to date.
If there’s one thing Trump is an expert at, it’s the drama of the reality shows that made him famous on NBC. He likes to keep the suspense until the last moment. At the moment, the announcement date is mid-July, during the Republican Party congress that will take place in Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin.
Good polls
At the moment, the polls put Trump ahead. And not only in general voting intention. In the key states the distance from him widens, for very varied reasons. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows that support for Trump among Black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania has increased, surpassing 2020 levels.
In Michigan, black voter support for Trump has risen to 15%, while in Pennsylvania it has reached 11%. That would help him win both and win the presidency. Although Biden remains the first or second choice for most of these voters, a significant number prefer third-party candidates such as Cornel West or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., or are undecided. This change could affect the electoral dynamics in these crucial states for the 2024 presidential elections. Already in 2016, the strength of third-party candidates like Jill Stein and others cost Hillary Clinton victory in those states.
