The Trump campaign is vetting at least eight Republicans to join the ticket. Who is the wisest choice?
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We’re doing things a little differently. With Donald Trump’s veepstakes in full gear, we conducted a very scientific poll of 16 Post Opinions contributors.
Our hard-hitting question: Who is Trump’s wisest choice for vice president, and why?
First, the parameters. We limited our ranking to just the candidates the Trump campaign is actively vetting. As The Post reports, at least eight people have received requests for paperwork to be on the ticket.
Here they are, in order of our contributors’ preferences:
While six of our contributors chose Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) as their top candidate, the rest of the responses were highly diverse. Only two Republicans — former secretary of housing and urban development Ben Carson and Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.) — failed to earn a No. 1 pick.
We asked a few folks to explain their thinking. Here’s what they had to say, starting with myself:
Alexi McCammond: My choice was easily North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Unlike any of the other contenders, Burgum is inoffensive. He’s no drama! He’s a proven businessman. (Microsoft bought his tech start-up in 2001 for more than $1 billion.) He knows how to be pro-Trump without being a sycophant, and because of that, he seems the most likely to stand up to Trump in the event of another constitutional crisis like Jan. 6, 2021.
It doesn’t matter that North Dakota has three electoral votes. It doesn’t matter if Burgum’s national name recognition is low. The electoral value that comes with a vice-presidential candidate (based mostly identity politics, really) is a myth. So save your home-state advantage takes for someone else.
Marc Thiessen: To win in November, Trump can’t simply depend on the enthusiasm of his MAGA base. He needs to unite the party and forge an electoral coalition that merges the new populist right with traditional Reaganite conservatives. Few better appeal to both factions than Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.). He is a loyal Trump ally and defender who made MAGA hearts swoon when he managed, with a single op-ed, to get the New York Times to implode........