A number of Republican figures are voicing concerns about Donald Trump still losing votes to Nikki Haley, and that this is increasing the need for the former president to choose the correct 2024 running mate.
GOP figures said that Trump must decide on the next potential vice president carefully if he hopes to win back the significant support the former South Carolina governor is getting in the primaries despite dropping out of the race two months ago.
On Tuesday, Haley managed to gain 21.7 percent of the vote, amounting to more than 128,000 votes, in the Indiana primary. It is the latest sign Trump is still struggling to win over Republican voters beyond his MAGA base. The results in Indiana followed on from Haley achieving more than 155,000 votes (16.5 percent) in the GOP primary in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on April 23, even though she dropped out of the race in March.
The concerns also arrive as South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem appears to have severely damaged her chances of being named Trump's next running. She received major backlash for revealing in her book No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward how she shot and killed her 14-month-old farm dog because of its aggressive behavior 20 years ago.
Kansas Senator Roger Marshall was one of those who said that who Trump chooses as his running mate could help win back Republican Haley voters.
"The population we need to be going after is this 17 percent of people that are not voting for President Trump in a primary even though Nikki Haley is not even in the primary," Marshall told the Washington Examiner.
"There's a group of Republicans out there that will play the long game. They want to know who's going to be the president after President Trump," Marshall added.
Newsweek has contacted Trump's office for comment via email.
Indiana Senator Todd Young also said that the state's recent GOP primary results show that there is still a "very sizable portion of the Republican Party that's insisting on a candidate who they can be proud of, on account of their character attributes and who promotes a policy agenda consistent with basic Reagan-era principles."
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, New York Representative Elise Stefanik, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Florida Senator Marco Rubio are among the names who have been touted as front-runners to be named Trump's next running mate.
Rubio himself said that Trump will win the 2024 presidential election no matter whom he picks, but added that the choice of running mate still needs to be the right one.
"He was the president before. People are going to vote based on that, but I think the criteria he said publicly is the right one, which is someone who's ready to be president," Rubio told the Washington Examiner.
Christopher Devine is an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio and author of the book Do Running Mates Matter?: The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections. He told Newsweek that vice-presidential candidates "may not win elections, but they do influence how people see the presidential candidate."
Devine also said Noem has destroyed any hope of her entering the White House next year after writing about killing her dog, and doubling down on her defense in subsequent comments.
"If Trump were to pick Noem, after all of this, it may cause voters to question his judgment and how seriously he takes the prospect of running the U.S. government again," Devine said.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
