donald trump he never showed much interest in preparing successors.
When he stepped down as host of “The Apprentice,” he mocked his replacement’s evaluations. There is no alumni network for former Trump White House officials like there is for the two presidents who preceded him. He signaled his approval when supporters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, a former aide testified to Congress.
But a funny thing happened on the way to naming a running mate: with an increasingly theatrical selection process centered on a wide range of candidates – similar to reality television shows – the former president fostered a new crop of rising stars within his broken.
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The group under consideration already constitutes some of the most sought-after pro-Trump Republicans for cable news interviews. And his access to some of the party’s biggest donors has increased thanks to his newly enhanced Trump bona fides. Whoever is not chosen as the Republican candidate for vice president will undoubtedly be among the first names discussed for the top of the ticket in 2028.
Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, 45, and Elise Stefanik of New York, 40, along with Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, 39, are widely seen as some of the party’s most promising young stars. Sen. Marco Rubio’s conservative credentials have been burnished by Trump’s consideration of the Florida senator as a top candidate. Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota emerged from political obscurity to become one of the former president’s staunchest defenders on television.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina got more exposure from being mentioned as a possible running mate than he did during his presidential run this year. Vivek Ramaswamyan Ohio businessman, likely would have taken a backseat after ending his bid for the White House, but was kept present at campaign and fundraising events at Trump’s insistence.
“Trump has been extremely helpful to these people,” said Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker whom Trump considered as a running mate in 2016. “They are all bigger and better known than they would be without Donald Trump.”
Trump helped raise their profile by repeatedly praising them at rallies, mentioning them as possible running mates. His campaign also created a device adapted to this objective. An internal booking team is explicitly tasked with ensuring that candidates are booked for interviews on cable TV channels and quoted in conservative media outlets. The campaign team also helped the candidates organize pro-Trump fundraisers and provided them with call lists of specific donors to ask for contributions to the Trump campaign, which could also help them in the future.
But competitors also bring benefits to Trump.
In recent years, some of the party’s most visible pro-Trump voices have also been some of its most controversial public figures, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was stripped of committee duties in 2021 after endorsing the executions of Democrats and spreading dangerous and bigoted misinformation, and some on the conservative fringe, like Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow who has been a leading financial supporter of the Trump election denial movement.
Republicans like Vance, Rubio and Burgum have records of scathing criticism of Trump, but they are now among his most vigorous defenders. By abandoning their reservations about him and participating in the vice presidential selection process, they made Trump more appealing to more traditional Republican voters and donors, while demonstrating their complete dominance of the party.
They have also become a credible army of pro-Trump, largely establishment voices for television interviews and at fundraisers. After Trump makes his pick, the rest of this group will continue to be seasoned surrogates for the campaign as the election approaches.
Mark McKinnon, a longtime adviser to Republican presidential candidates, said Trump was wise not to focus on well-known figures from his Make America Great Again movement, which he said would have excited his base but wouldn’t help attract new voters. .
“The interesting thing about what appears to be Trump’s short list is the dogs that aren’t barking — no MAGA celebrities,” McKinnon said, adding that it was “good for Trump electorally in the short term, but also good for the party because it expands the appeal.”
Trump has long insisted that whoever he chooses be ready to replace him in the Oval Office if necessary.
“We have a lot of good people that we have our eye on,” Trump said in a Newsmax interview in June when asked about his running mate. “But the most important thing, and I’ve said this a lot, and I think a lot of people would say this, is that if something were to happen, something bad, I think it would have to happen, but if something were to happen, we need someone who can step in and make a excellent job as president.”
The former president also seemed interested in releasing as many names as possible to increase speculation, but this also, in turn, raised the profile of these Republicans.
In one example, Trump gave an interview to Fox News in February in which he was asked about six politicians — the Donalds, Ramaswamy, Scott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Gov. Kristi Noem of Dakota of the South – and whether they were all on his “short list” of running mates.
Those six names were not all on his list, according to people familiar with the running mate search, but Trump confirmed they were all candidates. That moment signaled to his aides that he was interested in suggesting the search was broader than it actually was — and in helping raise the profile of his Republican allies.
Trump, in many ways, owed it to his fellow Republicans. His unexpected presidential candidacy in 2016 has often been referred to as a hostile takeover of the party. But little consideration was given to the impact of one of the key elements of that campaign, which was to effectively undermine what had been widely regarded as a deep and promising group of conservatives.
Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker, two young Republican governors who were seen at the time as the future of the party, ended their presidential bids before the first primary contest of 2016, when Trump attracted the attention of the media and Republican voters. Since then, both have been relegated to the background.
Before launching their own 2016 bids, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was hailed as the “next great conservative hope” by National Review, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was called “the most interesting man in politics.” on the cover of the magazine. Time. Both eventually returned to the Senate, where they are now known more as key Trump allies rather than Republican wunderkinds.
After Trump eviscerated Jeb Bush’s campaign, marking the end of a series of decades of Bush family dominance in Republican politics, many observers wondered where the party would go next.
“The Republican Party has a deep and talented bench, as demonstrated by the strength and diversity of the leaders supporting President Donald J. Trump,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
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