Only one contender for VP can help Trump win

The editorial board of the New York Post just weighed in on their preferred pick for Donald Trump’s running mate, noting that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance appear to be the front-runners in the VP chase. They rate Burgum the best choice, praising him for his executive experience, successful business background and for being tech-savvy.  

The Post’s analysis makes sense, but let’s get real: there’s only one candidate who would help Donald Trump win in November, and that’s Nikki Haley.  

Folks, it is all about winning. This country cannot tolerate another four years of Joe Biden. Four more years of White House ideologues pushing extreme agendas on climate, immigration and crime will permanently enshrine policies that are damaging to our country. Four more years of cozying up to Iran, entrenching the U.S. in globalist agreements, and working against our own geopolitical advantages in, for instance, fossil fuel dominance will further weaken our standing on the world stage. 

It is abundantly clear that the elites pulling Joe Biden’s strings do not care about ordinary Americans. People concerned about the cost of living do not spend billions of dollars on electric vehicles and other climate boondoggles. People concerned about public safety do not open our borders to millions of unvetted migrants. People concerned about the nation’s health do not allow diseases and fentanyl to flood across our border. 

Americans are wising up to the derelictions of the Biden presidency. Hispanics, whose neighborhoods are newly overrun by gangs and drugs imported from Venezuela and elsewhere, are calling for mass deportations. Biden is so deaf to their anger he counters by increasing amnesty programs and continuing to prop the border open. 

Voters rail at inflation; Biden ducks responsibility, calling out Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, mean companies and assorted other villains for the 20 percent hike in food prices on his watch. 

We can and must do better. We must usher Joe Biden out and Donald Trump in. Is Trump perfect? By no means; he is combative to a fault, arrogant and undisciplined. But he has been right — right about the threat posed by China, right about the need for our NATO allies to increase their financial commitment to their self-defense, and right to bring Arab nations and Israel together as a bulwark against Iran. He was also right also to embrace lower taxes and lighter regulation, allowing the economy to boom. He brought unemployment down and real wages up.  

Today, the race for the White House is a dead heat, according to national polling. Though much of the country deems Biden incapable of performing the duties of commander in chief, and though his approval rating is hitting historic lows, the president’s chances of being reelected should not be dismissed. The media is on his side, dismissing damaging video of brain freezes and missteps as fakes and misconstruing everything that Trump says; that’s formidable competition. Moreover, Democrats will again push each and every constituency, including employees of federal agencies, to get out the vote in districts where they will prevail.  

Nikki Haley could put Trump over the top.  

In April, a month after dropping out of the race, Haley won 14 percent of the votes cast in the Connecticut GOP primary; she also won 14 percent of the vote in Florida’s primary, also held after she abandoned her run. In Kansas she won 16 percent of the vote, in Maryland she captured 22 percent.

Last month, Haley won 21 percent of Indiana voters in the GOP primary, two months after quitting her campaign. Importantly, she won 35 percent of the vote in Indianapolis’s Marion County and over one-third of the vote in suburban Hamilton County. These are the kinds of Democrat-heavy suburban districts where Donald Trump does not do well; the soccer moms still don’t like the former president, but they do like Haley.  

Trump will likely win Indiana with or without the former South Carolina governor on the ticket, but her popularity with women and with moderate Republicans could be critical in toss-up states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, both of which Trump lost in 2020. 

The point is, even after Haley dropped out of the race, a good slug of Republicans voted for her anyway, expressing their misgivings about voting for Trump. The point is, Trump needs to win those votes in order to become president again, just as Joe Biden needed to win Bernie Sanders’s followers to win in 2020.  

With all due respect to Burgum, he will not add a single vote to Trump’s column. No one will be persuaded to vote for Trump because Burgum is on the ticket — or Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance, for that matter. Folks who like those VP candidates are already ready to back Trump. 

That is not the case with Haley.  

Haley took an important step on May 22 and said she would vote for Trump in November; the former president responded by saying, “Well, I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts.” He went further, calling his former United Nations ambassador a “very capable person.” That seems like the beginnings of a rapprochement.  

Some major donors have pushed the former president to put Haley on the ticket — not because they preferred her in the primaries, but because they believe she will help him win.  

For the good of the Republican Party and of the nation, Haley and Trump need to resolve their differences. Most likely, the overture will have to come from Haley; Trump still views her as having been disloyal, and she will have to beg for forgiveness. It’s worth it.

Trump is term-limited to four years; if he wins, his running mate will occupy the pole position to run for the presidency in 2028. Haley could be the nation’s first female president. Surely that’s worth fighting — and even groveling — for. 

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.