Donald Trump Secures Massive Endorsement from GOP Holdout - Will She Be His VP?
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem endorsing Donald Trump for president in 2024 might not be the biggest surprise in the world — but the way the announcement was made could be a sign of something larger.
At a party fundraiser in Rapid City on Friday, Noem promised she would “do everything I can to help [Trump] win and save this country,” according to The Associated Press.
She added that all of the other Republican candidates in the 2024 field had also been invited to the event.
“All of them told us that they had better things to do. But when President Trump was invited to come be with you tonight, he said, ‘I will be there,’” she said.
She went on to say Trump is “the leader, the fighter that our country needs” and that “he has my full and complete endorsement.”
BREAKING: Governor Kristi Noem endorses Donald J. Trump for President of the United States. pic.twitter.com/ye91AE4vXp
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) September 9, 2023
Trump called Noem “one of the most successful governors in the entire nation” and “a warrior for American values.”
🇺🇲TRUMP 2024 NOEM🇺🇲 pic.twitter.com/62A30htAQi
— Mauritz Venter (@MauritzVenter) September 9, 2023
Noem had been floated as a possible 2024 candidate herself, or a running mate for Trump, long before the endorsement. And she’d expressed her support for the former president before this.
“Our country is breaking right in front of our very eyes today, and everybody should be a part of putting it back on its foundation,” Noem said during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show last month.
“And if President Trump is going to be back in the White House, I’d do all I can to help him be successful.”
However, she had at times wavered on whether or not Trump would be the most electable candidate, telling The New York Times after the GOP’s disappointing 2022 midterm performance that she didn’t think the former president offered “the best chance” to win the 2024 election.
That was then, this is now — and, more importantly, the significance given to the event by both Noem and Trump is a sign that she’s being seriously considered as running mate material.
This isn’t necessarily news. Back in March, reports emerged that four women were on Trump’s shortlist for veep: Noem, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was once Trump’s press secretary.
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds has also been pushed by some of his House colleagues as a potential Trump pick, a role Donalds says he would accept.
The Donalds 2024 pic.twitter.com/Xa4Dg0Usem
— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) July 17, 2023
Another name routinely floated is that of Vivek Ramaswamy, the most Trump-friendly of the 2024 Republican candidates not named Trump and inarguably the biggest surprise in terms of polling success.
While the breakout candidate of the non-Trump field has said that he doesn’t “do very well in a No. 2 post,” he hasn’t explicitly ruled it out, either — and the media has been pretty explicit about ruling him in, if only because speculation pieces about VP picks are what you’re left with when Trump is at over 50 percent in the Real Clear Politics polling aggregate and no other candidate cracks 15.
That said, Noem is the candidate on that list who checks all the right boxes and none of the wrong ones.
At 51, she’s still spry without being too young for some voters. (Ramaswamy is 38 and has never held elected office, which could make voters a bit wary.)
Aside from Haley, Noem has the most experience as an elected official, first being elected to the U.S. House in 2010. And she’s not swampy or squishy, something that might turn Trump voters off when it comes to Haley.
So, yes, Noem’s imprimatur on Friday was a little more than a gubernatorial endorsement in a state that’s Trump territory already.
Instead, conservatives might have gotten a preview of what the stage at the Republican National Convention is going to look like come next summer.
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