Why Donald Trump Isn't In A Rush To Announce His 2024 Pick For Vice President
Donald Trump is running to be the Republican nominee for president for a third time. The field has narrowed down to just the former president and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Trump has thus far won the Republican primaries, and he's currently leading in the polls in Haley's home state of South Carolina. So for many, he's the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, but what's still unknown is who will be joining him on the ticket, and it may be a while before we find out.
Speaking with Fox News in January 2024, Trump teased a possible running mate announcement, but he made it clear how unimportant he thinks the VP pick is when it comes to the actual election: "It's never really had much of an effect. I may or may not release something over the next couple of months. There's no rush to that. It won't have any impact at all."
Typically, vice-presidential candidates are announced shortly before the candidate's party convention — the Republican National Convention is scheduled in mid-July this year. So it could be that Trump is following convention by waiting? Given Trump's general lack of convention — no pun intended — when it comes to politics though, there are likely other possibilities at play. It could be an issue of wanting to control the narrative and keep the attention focused on him. By holding out on telling people who he wants as VP, Trump is keeping the attention on him. Once he announces his pick, he'll be sharing the spotlight.
Loyalty to Donald Trump may be the key factor for his VP pick
It could also be that Donald Trump wants more possible vice-presidential candidates to spend more time working to win him and his base of voters over. If there's one thing that Trump seems to value, it's loyalty, and any potential VP knows that and will be working to go above and beyond to prove their loyalty as beyond that of anyone else. Trump likely enjoys seeing people compete to be his number-one supporter on the way to being the country's number-two in power.
As for who Trump is considering, he's leaving plenty of room to change his mind: "The person that I think I like is a very good person, pretty standard," Trump told Fox News. "But I would say there's probably a 25% chance it would be that person."
There are several potential candidates for Trump's vice presidential pick, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Elise Stefanik. Some are almost certainly not being considered. One is Nikki Haley. She's put the president on blast over many issues during the Republican primary campaign, and Haley's publicly confirmed she doesn't want to be VP. Another non-starter for Trump's VP is Mike Pence; he may have held the job before, but the two men had a falling out after January 6, 2021, and Pence has voiced his lack of interest in holding the position again.