While Trump, according to people who have spoken to him, is in no rush to make a decision and understands that he has to let the nomination process play out, he has nonetheless talked through possible choices since well before he formally announced his candidacy last fall. In those conversations, he has indicated his interest in selecting a woman this time around.
But allies say Trump is looking, first and foremost, for someone who will be unabashedly loyal after feeling burned by former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In 2016, running as a celebrity businessman with no experience in politics, Trump chose a person who was, in many ways, his total opposite, picking the Indiana governor and former congressman who could bolster his standing with conservatives and the religious right.
Trump, this time, is looking for someone more like himself, said Michael Caputo, a longtime friend and adviser who believes Stefanik would be Trump’s best choice.
“I think the president learned a lot from his experience with Pence,” he said. “I think this time Trump’s going to be looking for someone cut from the same cloth he is, not from a different, complementary cloth.”
While Trump is looking for someone with star power, he has also signaled that he is reluctant to choose someone who might overshadow him in the race.
FILE – Kari Lake speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. The first Republican presidential primaries are nearly a year away and the candidate field is unsettled. But already, a shadow contest of another sort is underway with several Republicans openly jockeying to position themselves as potential running mates to Donald Trump, the early front-runner for the nomination. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Among those who are seen as most eager for the job is Lake, who is popular with Trump’s MAGA base and won — and then promoted — a CPAC straw poll that asked audience members whom they would like to see as the Republican vice presidential nominee. She is seen as unequivocally loyal to the former president, but detractors note she lost her only race and continues to dispute the results, which would draw attention to Trump’s own election failures and intensify criticism that he is too focused on the past.
She said in a statement that she is “100% dedicated to serving as Arizona Governor” — even though Democrat Katie Hobbs, who defeated Lake, now holds the job — and “will also work to make sure President Trump gets back in the White House ASAP. Anything outside of those two goals is nothing but a distraction.”
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