The 2024 presidential election is unique because both President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his Republican challenger President Donald J. Trump are one-term candidates. Each has the potential to serve the first 12-year term since President George H.W. Bush succeeded President Ronald W. Reagan from 1981 to 1993.
Apart from the obscure fantasy of a second term for Biden and the subsequent entry of Vice President Kamala Harris into the Oval Office, the game is in the Republicans’ favor.
About ten names are mentioned as possible Trump running mates, all of whom would become the designated successors once Trump is first sworn in. They are four senators: Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina; two congressmen: Elise Stefanik of New York and Byron Donalds of Florida; a former Trump cabinet aide: Dr. Ben Carson and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
According to media reports, the Trump campaign has sent the vetting questionnaire to each of these eight candidates. My RedState colleague Ward Clark discussed these names in his article “Trump Vice Presidential Race Continues, More Names on the List.”
A previous favorite for the post, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, was missing from the list. Also missing from the list is the man I predict will be Trump’s vice president and who I believe could win two terms on his own: Virginia Governor Glenn A. Youngkin.
With Youngkin as his vice president, Trump has a hard-working conservative as his vice president who entered politics in the Trump era, not someone who entered politics before MAGA reshaped the Republican Party.
The prospect of a twelve-year term gives Americans hope for political stability after the turmoil that has dominated national politics since 2008.
Youngkin has been voted out of office as governor of the Commonwealth and is awaiting his next run for office. After missing the chance to challenge Democratic Senator Tim Kaine this election cycle, Youngkin could face Democratic Senator Mark Warner in 2026 when his term expires. Both Kaine and Warner are former governors.
The Warner challenge still stands, but no one is turning down the vice presidency.
Forget what you’ve heard about running mates having no influence on the presidential race. No one ever said the vice presidential candidate gets the most votes, but a capable running mate is a substantial assist.
With Youngkin on the ballot, Trump has an emissary to hesitant Republicans and suburban voters who need this permissive excuse to support Trump.
This is not to say that Youngkin is a moderate or a weakling.
In his bid to retain his seats in the House in 2023, Youngkin proposed his own ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy for a state where the previous governor had not recognized a child’s right to life after birth.
Youngkin’s recent order directed the Commonwealth to spotless up the electoral rolls.
His first executive order Dismantling Critical Race Theory in Virginia’s Public Schools.
Youngkin is in the game because Virginia is in the game
The Governor said CNN moderator Jake Tapper on June 6 that the polls favor Trump.
“Well, at least all the polls that I’ve seen, and, Jake, you’ve seen it too, show that the jerseys are pretty close right now,” he said. “I think there have been some clear decisions from a large number of voters, there aren’t that many who are undecided.”
Youngkin said he was confident voters would choose Trump over Biden.
“I think when the issues are discussed and debated between now and November 5th, there will be a clear difference between President Trump and President Biden,” he said. “I think Americans and Virginians are ready for a return of strength to the White House.”
The last Republican to win Virginia was President George W. Bush in 2004 with 54 percent to Senator John F. Kerry’s 46 percent.
In 2020, Trump lost to Biden by 44 percent to 54 percent.
These 10 points are now gone, according to a survey by Roanoke College The poll was conducted from May 12 to 21 and included 711 likely voters. The survey found Biden and Trump tied at 42 percent.
Significantly, Trump is at about the same level as in 2020, but Biden lost 12 percentage points.
The same poll shows that 52 percent approve of Youngkin’s job performance and 53 percent say the Commonwealth is moving in the right direction. Seventy percent of respondents say America is moving in the wrong direction.
Youngkin, the former co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, was elected in 2021 with 51 percent.
The next poll was that of Fox News, conducted June 1-4 among 1,107 registered voters, which showed the two men tied at 48 percent to 48 percent.
While it may seem counterintuitive, the poll of registered voters is likely to be more precise than the poll of likely voters because Trump voters are not core voters, meaning they tend to vote just because of Trump.
The challenge for Biden is to repeat his exceptional turnout from 2020. President Barack Obama won Virginia in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton won in 2016, with just under two million votes. Biden received 2.4 million votes to win in 2024.
The Roanoke poll shows that Youngkin has enough popular support to win the majority in the state if he were to run with Trump at the top of the ballot.
Youngkin was never with NeverTrump
Immediately after Virginia elected Youngkin, the former Rice University basketball player was touted as a possible challenger for Trump’s comeback.
In fact, people close to Youngkin entertained the idea that Youngkin could take on the role of mediator if Trump and DeSantis were at a standoff by Thanksgiving 2023.
In fact, his 2021 campaign adviser, Jeff Roe, said Youngkin was definitely a potential candidate.
Despite all these tensions, Youngkin has never criticized Trump and regularly misses the opportunity to do so.
Youngkin thanked Trump for supporting his victory.
Trump himself was proud that Youngkin won his victory, which came eleven months after he left the White House and a year before he announced his 2024 campaign.
Speaking of on April 5, 2022 on the John Fredericks ShowTrump told Fredericks that Youngkin thanked him for his victory.
John Fredericks: You are the reason Glenn Youngkin is the governor of Virginia. Because if you hadn’t interfered, Terry McAuliffe would have won hands down.
Trump card: No chance – by the way, he wrote me a nice letter thanking me and so on. I’ll tell you that right away. He was very nice, but Youngkin would not have won the race – not even close.
I did a conference call with the state. We had a tremendous number of people – hundreds of thousands of people, and every single one of those people voted. No, he would have lost, and MAGA got really upset when I did that, and they acknowledged that.
As if to seal the deal when Youngkin took office, he hired veterans of the Trump world and officially endorsed the president in March.
LaCivita is the Virginia connection
Trump’s 2024 campaign will be led by two people: Susie Wiles and Christopher LaCivita.
Wiles lives in Florida. LaCivita lives in Virginia, where he has spent most of his professional life. His first jobs in politics included working for George Allen and his campaigns for Congress, Governor and Senator – after returning home from the Gulf War as a Purple Heart Marine veteran.
When Youngkin won the 2021 gubernatorial election, he was not part of the Youngkin campaign – which was run by consultant Jeff Roe and his firm Axiom – but as a partner in FP1, LaCivita was close enough.
In the 2021 cycle, LaCivita and FP1 worked on the successful GOP campaigns for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares.
If Youngkin leaves office to become vice president, his client Sears will become the next governor. Sears would then be allowed to run for her own term in 2025, as term limits only apply to elected terms.
Trump’s recent appreciation of TikTok signals connection to Youngkin’s ally Yass
It is simply that the largest GOP donor to Republican candidates this cycle is a substantial fan of Youngkin.
In the 2023 Virginia Legislature election campaign, Jeffrey Yass donated $2 million to Youngkins Spirit of Virginia PAC.
Yass, head of the Susquehanna International Group, contributed $10 million for the Club for Growth to produce and air television ads in Iowa attacking Trump. However, the advertising campaign had to be canceled when it became clear that each of the 40 ads helped Trump in one way or another.
Yass’ hostility toward Trump was not alleviated when Trump on August 6, 2020 signed an executive order that effectively banned TikTok because Susquehanna holds a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance –a position that could be worth $15 billion.
A court suspended the Trump banand then Biden repealed the EO entirely.
Speaking of social media positions: Susquehanna also said The New York Times that it is a market maker on Trump’s platform, Trump Social. This does not mean that Susquehanna is an institutional investor, but rather that its traders build positions to make it easier for other traders to build or liquidate their own positions.
In February, Yass, the Club for Growth and Trump agreed to bury the hatchetso they are now determined to win in 2024.
Part of that commitment was Trump’s realization that TikTok’s disappearance would be a free pass for Facebook, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent $400 million in 2020 to defeat him.
There are no reports so far that Yass has donated to the Trump campaign, but after the whole TikTok story and the Club for Growth embarrassment are out of the way, Youngkin’s nomination for vice president is the overriding reason.
