Mar.09

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump Is Considering Four Women for Veep

Axios has a scoop on who Donald Trump is considering for his running mate. According to Axios' sources, Trump knows he has a massive problem with college-educated suburban women and is thinking about how he can fix that, especially since the Democratic veep candidate is almost certainly going to be a woman (i.e., Kamala Harris). The sources say Trump is seriously looking at these women, each of whom has different strengths and weaknesses from his point of view.

• Kari Lake: Her biggest plus is that she claims he won the 2020 election and she won the Arizona gubernatorial election. She is clearly willing to mouth any lie he wants her to mouth. That is a huge plus, at least from his point of view. If he makes his preference for her known during the primaries, that could be a plus with blue-collar women, but probably not so much with college-educated women because they are largely registered as independents or Democrats these days and thus don't vote in Republican primaries. Maybe Trump thinks Lake will help him in the general election, though. However, those college-educated suburban women are one of the smartest demographic groups out there. Are they really going to vote for Trump because he picked someone who is clearly lying through her teeth as his veep? We doubt that they will fall for it. Also, if Lake becomes veep, she will instantly start her 2028 campaign for president and may try to upstage Trump. He hates anyone upstaging him.
  
  
• Nikki Haley: On paper, Haley is probably the most qualified of the bunch to take over the big job if Trump has one portion of fries too many. She was a member of the South Carolina House, governor of the state, and ambassador to the United Nations, so she has legislative, executive, and foreign policy experience. She is also the daughter of immigrants, which might get him some votes among immigrants (although that is somewhat neutralized by Harris' immigrant background). He biggest liability is that she is not 100% MAGA and Trump won in 2020 rah rah rah. She could suddenly become that, but it would be noticed and people would see here as a phony. As far as we can see, Trump does not really like her the way he likes Lake. But the #1 doesn't have to like the #2 (see: Kennedy, John Fitzgerald).
  
  
• Kristi Noem: Another governor, like Haley, but she is already auditioning for the job by saying exactly the things Trump love to hear. She also has a decent résumé: member of the South Dakota House, U.S., House, and governor, but Trump doesn't really care about that. What he likes is her very aggressive Trumpishness. Also, he probably rates her much higher on a scale of 1 to 10 over Haley because her ancestors came from Norway, not some "sh**hole country, like Haley's did." Note that we're not meaning to imply here that Trump is kind of racist. We're trying to state it outright.
  
  
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders: We can't believe this is serious. But the Axios report is from Mike Allen and he is plugged in as well as anyone in D.C. this side of Maggie Haberman. So, Trump is undoubtedly at least considering her. Her biggest plus is her amazing ability to lie about anything with a straight face, something she demonstrated as White House press secretary. She also demonstrated that nepotism is alive and well in Arkansas. After all, her only qualification for being governor is that her father used to be governor. That is one step below Sarah Palin, who was at least a mayor before she became governor. Nepotism is something that Trump well understands and no doubt she gets points for taking full advantage of it. If he picks her, the Democrats are going to say that she makes Palin look like a heavyweight.
  

Our take is that Lake is a sore loser, which Americans don't like, Haley is unlikely to be Trump's choice because of her lack of enthusiasm for election denial and her heritage. Sanders is totally and completely unqualified to become president on a moment's notice if it comes to that. That leaves Noem as the most logical choice, since she is both very Trumpy and has both legislative and executive experience. She doesn't have any foreign policy experience, but she can surely pick a suitable secretary of state and let the secretary handle foreign policy. Or she can just leave Trump's pick in place. (V)