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The big horse race won't be over until November, but the mini-horse race is nearing its denouement. Donald Trump has promised he will reveal his choice of running mate at the Republican National Convention, which means there are roughly 3 weeks left for speculation and "insider reports" and the like.
Yesterday, there were reports from several outlets, most of them claiming to be "first" with the scoop, and all of them claiming two, somewhat contradictory things: (1) that Trump has narrowed his list of VP contenders down to three and (2) that he knows which of the three it's going to be. Needless to say, if he knows who the running mate is going to be, then he hasn't narrowed the list down to three, he's narrowed it down to one.
Allegedly, the three "finalists" are Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND). North Dakota is not in play at all, Ohio would only be in play in a blue wave, and yesterday, the Biden campaign conceded that they will not try to win Florida. So, none of these three candidates would help Trump win a state.
Vance is probably best at connecting with the base, but does Trump really need help there? Burgum would help with money, though maybe Trump doesn't need help there anymore, either, now that he's raising fistfuls of cash from his conviction. Rubio would help with... um, we really don't know. We suppose that Trump might have convinced himself that Rubio will help bring in the "Latino" vote. No doubt Rubio will help with the Cuban vote, but the vast majority of Cuban-Americans are in Florida, and that state is already a done deal. And voters from other Latin cultures—say, Mexican Americans—don't look at Rubio and see themselves. We'll also add that Rubio is the least effective of the three when it comes to television and other public appearances; he tends to look uncomfortable, and he tends to say stupid things. Remember MarcoBot.
If we are to believe this list of finalists, then it means that all of the early contenders ended up out of the running. Similarly, all the myriad women contenders didn't make the final cut. Maybe that is because Kari Lake, Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), etc. all dropped the ball in various ways. But it's also the case that Trump does not work well with women, and has a hard time seeing them as equals. In fact, he has a hard time seeing them as anything other than sexual objects; dividing them into those he would want to bed, and those he would not. We would have been surprised, and would be surprised, to see him choose a woman as a running mate.
All of this said, though he was president, and though he aspires to be president again, Trump is about the least decisive person on Earth. When he chose Mike Pence the first time, he later noted that he changed his mind several times that day, and that if the lunch at which he extended the offer to Pence had been a few hours later, Pence might not have been the pick. So, even if Trump really has "decided" who the person will be, that's subject to change a dozen times before an announcement is made.
One other thing. We wrote this item because virtually every outlet had a Trump VP story yesterday, treating the latest scuttlebutt as major news. However, Trump is a skilled manipulator of the media, and could well be putting red herrings out there just to get some more attention. The fact that several outlets (CNN, NBC and The Hill, among the ones we saw) thought they all had "the scoop" is consistent with the notion that they're being played like a fiddle.
On this same point, Trump would dominate a couple of news cycles after announcing the VP, and he'll dominate four or five news cycles with the Republican Convention, because that's just how things work. It's very hard to accept that he'd do something so inefficient, when it comes to publicity, as combine the two opportunities. And so, while he says he's announcing the VP at the convention, don't be surprised if the announcement actually comes before the convention—say, the Friday before, so that it draws attention to Trump's campaign and to the upcoming RNC, and basically allows him to dominate seven straight news cycles. (Z)