Presidential election | A running mate for Trump?

Never seen. The race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election will not officially begin until January 15, the date of the Iowa caucuses. However, the American media are already multiplying the lists of potential running mates of Donald Trump, a sign of his dominant position in the polls. Here are some of the most commonly mentioned names.

Kristi Noem

” In the blink of an eye. » This is the time it would take the Republican governor of South Dakota to respond to an offer to become Donald Trump’s running mate, in her own words. Elected to her current position in 2018 after serving four terms in the House of Representatives, the 52-year-old politician has already shown her zeal for the former president by offering her support as early as last September. Only 3 of her 26 Republican counterparts had preceded her on this path. Trump did not fail to compliment her in return. “Kristi is a warrior for American values,” he said of the daughter of farmers who notably enacted restrictive laws on abortion and the participation of transgender women on school sports teams consistent with their identity of gender. Even so, Noem could help Trump narrow the advantage Joe Biden enjoyed in 2020 among women. The same would go for any running mate.

Tim Scott

Before ending his campaign last November, the Republican senator from South Carolina often gave the impression of running not for the presidency, but for the vice-presidency. As if he wanted to preserve his chances of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate, the 58-year-old politician missed numerous opportunities to criticize him. There have certainly been exceptions, notably on abortion. “President Trump said he would negotiate with the Democrats and move away from what I think we need, which is a 15-week limit at the federal level,” he said on NBC . The former president did not hold it against him. “He’s a good guy,” he said later, recalling the role of his ex-rival in the adoption of his economic aid program for disadvantaged areas in 2017. The only black senator from Grand Old Party could help the Republican ticket narrow Democrats’ advantage among African-American voters.

Nikki Haley

It is not uncommon for a party’s presidential candidate to choose one of their main opponents as their running mate. Ronald Reagan did so in 1980 by choosing George Bush Sr., the same person who had used the expression “economic voodoo” to denounce his tax reduction proposals. Donald Trump would therefore not be breaking new ground by asking the former Republican governor of South Carolina to join the Republican Party ticket, at least not on this level. However, it would create a precedent by giving the GOP its first vice-presidential candidate of color, and the daughter of immigrants to boot. He would thus have an experienced and relatively young running mate (she will be 52 on January 20). But the candidate made criticisms of the former president that the latter does not seem to want to forgive, at least for the moment. On Truth Social, Donald Trump never misses the opportunity to call his former UN ambassador a birdbrain (” stupid “).

Vivek Ramaswamy

Like Nikki Haley, the 38-year-old entrepreneur, who made his fortune in biotechnology, is the child of Indian immigrants. But that’s where the comparisons end between the seasoned politician, personification of a certain Republican establishment, and this political neophyte in tune with the populism of the MAGA movement. It goes without saying that the young candidate, unlike his rival, has never dried up his praise for Donald Trump, “the best president of the 21st^e century,” according to his own words. He was also the first of the Republican presidential candidates to announce that he would pardon the former president on his first day in the White House if elected. His praise and promises led many observers to believe that he was eyeing a place on the Republican ticket. Trump said for his part that he “would be very good” as a vice-presidential candidate. Shortly after, one of the multimillionaire’s campaign advisors joined Trump’s. His inexperience and arrogance could harm him, however.

Elise Stefanik

No one ever doubted the ambition of the New York State representative in Congress, who replaced her former Wyoming colleague Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican caucus. While Cheney denounced Donald Trump for January 6, 2021, she defended him tooth and nail, forgetting her own 2016 criticisms of the future president. She offered further proof of her loyalty to Trump by supporting his third presidential campaign even before he launched it, in November 2022. “It is very clear that President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party,” she said. she then said. Recently, she raised her profile at a House hearing where she unsettled three female presidents of prestigious universities on the issue of anti-Semitism, two of whom have since resigned. Her critics, however, point out that she herself promoted a version of the Great Replacement theory popular with anti-Semites by accusing Democrats of wanting to change the electorate through illegal immigration.

Tucker Carlson

Potential running mates coming from left field or the far right are legion. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is part of this group, as is the former Fox News host, the personification of populism mixed with white nationalism. Donald Trump promoted himself as a potential running mate during an interview last November: “I really like Tucker. I think that I [considérerais sa candidature] because he has a lot of common sense. » The former president’s statement is all the more astonishing as it concerns a man who has already admitted in an email to hating him “passionately”. His leniency towards the host is perhaps not unrelated to the opinion of his wife Melania. “Melania Trump is in favor of the choice of Tucker Carlson [comme colistier] “, reported the news site Axios last December. “She thinks Carlson would be a powerful extension of her husband on stage. » Reaction of the person concerned: “I am a talk show host. »