In an attempt to boost interest in former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House, some allies are reportedly thinking of suggesting candidates to be his running mate despite that the Republican nominee won’t be chosen until the summer of next year, according to a new report.
Mr Trump hasn’t started campaigning for the nomination and few people have been hired to run his operation in the early primary states, but allies have still been considering names for VP, The Daily Beast reported.
Several women are among those being considered, including New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Tulsi Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in the US House as a Democrat until January 2021, according to the report.
After running for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Ms Gabbard left the party last year.
Ms Gabbard has grabbed the attention of Mr Trump during her appearances on Fox News, specifically when she stepped in to host Tucker Carlson’s show, The Daily Beast noted.
A friend of Ms Gabbard who campaign for her in New Hampshire, Eric Jackman, told The Daily Beast that Ms Gabbard would be able to connect with younger independents wanting someone “who is of the 9/11 generation, served in the military and would be very hesitant to offer advice to a commander-in-chief to go invade or overthrow another country”.
“Me, speaking personally, I’d love to see her at the top of the ticket,” he added. “But if it meant her at the top of the ticket with another Republican, yeah, you know, my experience is people who are Tulsi Gabbard supporters are very past partisan politics, they don’t like partisanship, they don’t like to be pinned down by a label.”
A Republican strategist said choosing Ms Gabbard would be similar to President Joe Biden removing Vice President Kamala Harris from the ticket and instead go with one of former Republican Representatives Adam Kinzinger of Illinois or Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
“Sure, they stand up for you on a couple issues, but they hate you on everything else,” the strategist told The Daily Beast. “Cool, but let’s not give away the farm here.”
It seems clear that Mr Trump will not choose former Vice President Mike Pence as his 2024 running mate, after Mr Trump’s no 2 failed to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory in Congress. There are a number of other rising stars in the Republican Party whom Mr Trump could choose – including failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, staunch ally Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene and even former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
