Former President Donald Trump has kept the contest for his running mate open, and his preferences have largely remained secret.
Throughout the 2024 cycle, Trump has relied on a number of surrogates to drum up support for him when he couldn’t be there shaking hands himself. And when he was stuck in a courtroom in New York during his historic hush money trial, most of the people rumored to be on his short list made their way to the courthouse to show support for him.
It’s unlikely Trump is going to make a decision long before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next month. But as names continue to swirl, reports that he has sent detailed questionnaires to a handful of contenders could signal he is winnowing down the list that has grown and shrunk by the day in recent weeks.
To help voters make sense of the runners and riders participating in the Trump veepstakes, the Washington Examiner has compiled a cheat sheet to use as a quick reference guide for the biggest question left in the 2024 contest — Who, exactly, is Trump going to select to be his running mate?
Doug Burgum
The governor of North Dakota went from being a punchline as an also-ran candidate to a Trump challenger for the 2024 Republican nomination to a front-runner in Trump’s veepstakes. A wealthy businessman who spent millions of dollars on his own campaign would give Trump access to a network of donors to complement his grassroots support.
Despite rejecting the proposition of doing business with Trump when he was asked about it on the campaign trail, Burgum has retracted some of his former criticisms and has proven himself to be a loyal and dependable supporter of the former president.
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Ben Carson
A former competitor with Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, Carson went on to serve in the Trump administration after dropping out of the contest and lining up behind the eventual nominee.
Carson was the secretary of Housing and Urban Development throughout the duration of Trump’s first term in office.
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Tom Cotton
The two-term senator and former Army officer has made a name for himself in Washington, D.C., as one of the sharpest foreign policy and immigration hawks in the country. He has also proven to be a strong supporter of the former president.
While he has shown a willingness to pick fights with Democrats, he has crossed paths with members of his own party as well, including rejecting Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. However, his defiance of Trump doesn’t appear to have turned the former president away from considering him to be a useful ally if he returns to the White House.
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Byron Donalds
A rising star in the Republican Party, Donalds faces the major hurdle of being from the same state as Trump, complicating his path to joining the former president on a ticket.
After making a name for himself as a sharp critic of entitlement spending, even attacking Trump’s position on the issue once upon a time, the two-term representative is a regular defender of the former president.
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Marco Rubio
Rubio and Trump have not always been allies. The two shared more than their fair share of barbs on the campaign trail when they were opponents in 2016.
Despite a history of vitriolic criticism, the two Florida men appear to have made amends. Rubio faces a similar problem to Donalds in that he and Trump both hail from Florida. However Rubio could offer Trump increased access to Hispanic and Latino voters the former president has shown he has been successful in wooing away from President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
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Tim Scott
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) broke onto the national scene when he delivered the GOP rebuttal to Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress in 2021. An affable former insurance agent and House member, Scott has made a name for himself as the only black Republican in the Senate.
His 2021 rebuttal, and much of his message on the campaign trail when he was challenging Trump for the nomination in 2024, focused on his message that Democrats are lying about the United States being a structurally racist country.
With Biden scuffling with black voters, putting Scott on the ballot could help Trump win over yet another voting bloc that is growing more and more restless with Democrats.
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Elise Stefanik
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is not only the fourth-ranked Republican in the House of Representatives, she is also one of Trump’s staunchest and loudest defenders.
The House Republican Conference chairwoman, only turning 40 on July 2, would offer a younger and female perspective to Trump’s second-term agenda. The fact that she represents New York in Congress, as well, could be a selling point for Trump, as the GOP made major strides in the Empire State in 2022.
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J.D. Vance
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Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), also just 39 years old, is another younger option for Trump as age remains a major talking point before the presidential election. Vance is not just a major backer of Trump, but he also represents a midwestern state in Ohio, bordering swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan that are likely to decide the election.
Vance rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Effigy, which detailed his upbringing in Kentucky and Ohio, as well as the Appalachian values his parents inspired in him. The Ohio Republican criticized Trump ahead of the 2016 election but then changed his tune ahead of his 2021 run for U.S. Senate, which he ultimately won. Since then, he has been one of Trump’s biggest advocates.