Who Will Be Donald Trump's Running Mate? Latest VP Odds

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is the favorite to be the 2024 Republican vice-presidential candidate according to odds provided to Newsweek by a leading bookmaker nearly six months before voters give their verdict on November 5.

UK-based bookies Betfair gave odds of 5/1 (16.7 percent) on Scott being the GOP's vice-presidential nominee ahead of North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum on 8/1 (11.1 percent) and former House Democrat, turned conservative media favorite, Tulsi Gabbard on 9/1 (10 percent).

Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, having dispatched all his GOP challengers in a series of primary contests, and barring some unforeseen event will be the party's standard-bearer in November as he seeks a second White House term.

In the Republican VP candidate odds Gabbard is followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio on 12/1 (7.7 percent), New York Representative Elise Stefanik with 13/1 (7.1 percent) and Ben Carson, who served as housing secretary during Trump's presidency.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, one of Trump's main GOP primary opponents, and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance are also said to be in the running.

Newsweek has contacted representatives of Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign for comment by email.

On Sunday, Scott was quizzed about whether he could be Trump's running mate by NBC News' Kristen Welker, one day after the former president appeared at Mar-a-Lago along with several of his other rumored vice-presidential options.

He replied: "No ma'am. What we talked this weekend about how bad the economy is for single parents like the one that raised me. We had a lot of conversations around the room about the importance of eliminating 'Bidenomics' and getting inflation back under 2 percent. We had no conversations about the VP pick to be honest with you, to be clear."

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem had been widely seen as one of the favorites to be Trump's running mate, but her odds fell sharply after she discussed fatally shooting her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, in her new book because it was aggressive and "untrainable."

In late April, Noem had a 10 percent chance of being Trump's VP candidate according to prediction website Polymarket, where users can attempt to forecast world events, but this fell to just two percent after the story broke.

There have been rumors that Trump's primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy may also be in the running, although Betfair only gave him an outside chance, with odds of 25/1.

Trump is the slight favorite over President Joe Biden in November according to Betfair, which gave him odds of 6/5 (45.5 percent) against 7/5 (41.7 percent) for the Democratic incumbent.

However, the bookies also said Biden is strongly favored to win the popular vote, with the odds of this happening at 2/5 (71.4 percent) versus 4/1 (20 percent) for Trump.

Betfair also gave the Republicans odds of 2/5 (71.4 percent) on controlling the Senate after November's election, ahead of 2/1 (33.3 percent) for the Democrats.

Speaking to Newsweek Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom said: "Whoever wins the presidential election will need support in the Senate, as has become clear in recent months as senators wrangled with President Biden's funding for Ukraine amongst other issues."