- Written by Anthony Zurcher
- North American correspondent
With most of the drama in the Republican primary nomination race over, the political conversation on the right has shifted to who clear front-runner Donald Trump will choose as his running mate.
Indeed, this topic was a hot topic during the past four days at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Attendees at the annual gathering of right-wing activists, lobbyists and corporations, which in recent years have been dominated by Trump supporters, voted in a straw vote to decide who should split the Republican ticket in November.
The results, which included 17 candidates, were announced on Saturday night.
- South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem – 15%
- Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy – 15%
- Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard – 9%
- New York State Representative Elise Stefanik – 8%
- South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott – 8%
- Florida Congressman Byron Donald – 7%
Five of the top six vote-getters spoke to the Cpac audience on Thursday and Friday, effectively serving as an audition session to determine the second-place candidate. Scott, considered one of the front-runners, was campaigning for Trump in his home state of South Carolina, where the Republican primary was held on Saturday, and did not attend the convention.
Here’s a look at how some of the vice presidential hopefuls made their pitches at CPAC and how they were received.
image source, Getty Images
From left – Tulsi Gabbard, Elise Stefanik, Kristi Noem
Tulsi Gabbard
Former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been on an eight-year political journey from the left of Bernie Sanders to right alongside Donald Trump.
After supporting the Democratic socialist Vermont senator against Hillary Clinton in 2016, she ran for president in 2020 and campaigned for government-run health care, free college tuition, and guns. He championed liberal issues such as regulation.
Now, she’s praising Trump and is scheduled to headline a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser in March.
“This person is a fighter,” she said in a CPAC speech Thursday night. “His strength and resilience comes from one place and one place only…his genuine love and concern for the future of our country.”
She also warned of a growing threat to American democracy, which she argued came from the left’s prosecution of Trump.
Video: Trump asks party supporters who they should choose and if they have anything good to say about Joe Biden
Gabbard has been talked about by right-wingers such as President Trump’s confidant Roger Stone, who have focused on her deployment of the National Guard to Iraq, her American Samoan ancestry, and her charismatic stage presence. They see it all as a way to expand the former president’s appeal. election.
Ms. Gabbard’s criticism of interventionist US foreign policy dovetails well with Mr. Trump’s “America First” outlook.
The challenge for Gabbard is her long track record of supporting liberal issues and concerns that as Trump’s running mate, she could be an unreliable successor to his political campaign. There is.
For CPAC attendee Joshua Mixon, a college student from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, that didn’t matter much. “She’s not necessarily a full-on Republican, but she’s just very smart,” he said. “She’s very strong in her beliefs.”
Kristi Noem
It’s difficult to gain national recognition as the governor of a state with “Dakota” in your name. South Dakota’s Kristi Noem achieved something of a breakthrough in 2020 by pushing back against the coronavirus restrictions recommended in her sparsely populated state.
The coronavirus pandemic may no longer be a prominent political issue, but the connection he forged with Trump by inviting him to the state’s Mount Rushmore Fourth of July celebration in 2020 remains. He continues to bring her into the conversation as vice president.
At CPAC, Noem highlighted her own history of coronavirus infection, boasting that she has “never, ever closed a shop” among the governors.
“We trusted each other and we overcame challenges together,” she said.
She also said she was one of the first public officials to support Trump’s 2024 campaign and criticized some of the people who opposed him and would be his rivals for vice president.
“Why were all the other candidates running in the race?” she asked. “For yourself? For personal gain? To get attention for a limited time?”
Noem wants Trump’s supporters at CPAC, and even Trump himself, to know that she has been with Trump from the beginning.
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Elise Stefanik
Elise Stefanik of New York has steadily risen through the ranks of Congress since being elected to Congress in 2014. She is also moving steadily closer to Trump’s orbit.
Her rise to stardom came last year when her aggressive questioning of three university presidents during a public hearing on anti-Semitism on college campuses made national headlines. Two of the presidents resigned following intense criticism of their responses to her questions.
“I have a backbone of steel,” Stefanik said in a speech at CPAC. “Ask the presidents of Harvard and Penn…ask the former presidents of Harvard and Penn.”
This new name recognition, along with her full-throated support of Trump during his two presidential impeachments, has propelled her to the top of vice presidential speculation.
Before she took the stage at CPAC, a slick video featuring a prominent clip of Trump praising her efforts was played. Unstated message: The former president talks about her regularly, and he likes what he sees.
In a speech, she said she was the first lawmaker to support Trump’s 2024 re-election, saying the upstate New York congressional district she flipped from Democratic control is now “Trump and Elise country.” he boasted.
It sounded like she was chanting a 2024 election slogan.
Vivek Ramaswamy
The technology entrepreneur ran as this year’s Republican presidential candidate with an unconventional strategy: championing and effusively praising the person most likely to win the race.
Beating him is exactly what Trump did, as Ramaswamy dropped out of the race after falling short of fourth place in the Iowa caucuses in January.
Even if this strategy wasn’t a great way to challenge the former president, it proved effective in gaining his support, earning him a spot on stage at a campaign rally, and even a speaking opportunity. Obtained.
At Cpac’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan on Friday night, Ramaswamy said Trump would lead conservatives to victory in what he called a war for America’s future.
“There is no compromise on either side in this war,” he said.
Ramaswamy’s lackadaisical tone ultimately became part of his own presidential failure, as many Republicans took offense to his aggressive debate performance. But that could put him on notice as a potential vice presidential candidate.
byron donald
This little-known Florida lawmaker burst onto the political scene in January 2023. He was a candidate for Speaker of the House, but conservatives supported him briefly to show their disapproval of California’s eventual winner, Kevin McCarthy.
Since then, Mr. Donald has further thrust the moment into the spotlight by increasing his criticism of President Joe Biden and defending Mr. Trump on conservative cable TV.
image source, Getty Images
Byron Donald is an outspoken critic of President Biden
On Thursday morning, the 45-year-old appeared in front of a crowd at CPAC and delivered a boilerplate speech that was largely right-wing.
“He’s a solid conservative with common sense,” said Dixie Ferguson, who was visiting CPAC from Walla Walla, Washington. “For a young player, I think he has great leadership qualities.”
If Mr. Trump wants diversity in his running mate and is not satisfied with Mr. Scott, Mr. Donald, who is black, may be another option.
But a stumbling block is a constitutional provision that prohibits two candidates from the same state from running for president.
Either Mr. Trump or Mr. Donald will have to find a new legal home, at least temporarily.
JD Vance
J.D. Vance criticized Trump in 2016, calling him a “complete fraud.” But like several potential vice presidential candidates, Vance has a soft spot for the former president.
The change comes around the same time that the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a best-selling memoir about the struggles of rural American life, turned to politics in 2022 and won an Ohio Senate seat as a Republican. .
At CPAC on Friday, Vance did not give a formal speech, but rather did an interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmidt.
Much of the conversation focused on Ukraine, a topic where Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump overlap in their views on an early negotiated resolution.
“We don’t like that Russia invaded Ukraine, but the question is, what can we do about it?” he said. “A lot of people think diplomacy is a bad word…We want the killing to stop.”
Mr. Vance campaigned by putting his own spin on the former president’s populist rhetoric.
Mr. Vance is the only white man who regularly appears on Mr. Trump’s running mate list, which is notable given the Republican Party’s – and Mr. Trump’s – insistence that personnel decisions be color-blind.
This reflects the common view that former presidents need to find ways to expand their appeal beyond their own political base, and that selecting a vice president is one way to do that.
If Mr. Trump seeks to improve his standing in the Midwest, perhaps the most important battleground in November’s election campaign, he will seek a running mate from Ohio who understands the plight of working-class white voters. Choosing may help.
