A third candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, remains in contention, unnamed sources told NBC News.
Internally, a key point of tension and indecision is balancing the desire for a non-threatening running mate with the desire for someone who can also be considered the future of the Trump movement, they told the television network.
In several public appearances, Trump has said he hopes to announce his election closer to or during the Republican National Convention, July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Three people familiar with the discussions said one option is for Trump to announce it days earlier, immediately after his sentencing is announced July 11 for the New York criminal trial in which he faced 34 felonies, in an effort to upstage a damaging news cycle.
However, another source considered that the election could also be held before the sentencing in a bid to generate unexpected fundraising; although that would be an unlikely scenario for fear that the former president’s legal problems would quickly drown out any news about the revelation of his running mate.
Those who follow the issue recalled that on Thursday, Burgum campaigned for Trump in Michigan, a battleground in 2024, while Vance appeared with Trump at a fundraising event in Cleveland. For his part, Rubio spoke last week at a celebration of Trump’s birthday in West Palm Beach, Florida, but many remember the difficult history of both in the past, when they faced each other with very bad tempers for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. .
Candidates seen as prospects, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, are not out of the question, but they don’t sound like Burgum, Vance or Rubio at this point, they note.
For Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House strategist and host of a podcast that is popular with Republican voters, Burgum, Vance and Stefanik are the “top-notch people running hard” to get elected.
“As President Trump himself has said, the main criterion for selecting a vice president is that he be a strong leader with prospects to continue after his next four-year term concludes,” his campaign’s senior advisor stressed in a statement. Brian Hughes.
“But anyone who tells you they know who or when President Trump will pick his vice president is lying, unless that person is named Donald J. Trump.”
Less than five months before the November 5 elections, the battles in courts, trials and legal problems, far from affecting Trump, strengthened him in various polls.
A recent forecast model gives him a 59 percent chance of winning the presidency, while the current incumbent, Democrat Joe Biden, is given a 41 percent chance.
In any case, in the electoral scenario any unexpected event can take a turn and flip polls. Nothing is written.
The coming confrontation will be a rematch of the 2020 presidential elections, in which Biden will now seek to continue his leadership (to finish the job, as his slogan refers) and Trump will aspire to regain the presidency (to make America great again ).
Biden defeated Trump in 2020, flipping key states such as Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In 2024 the conditions are not the same as four years ago.
ode/dfm
