There are several great options among former President Donald Trump’s possible running mates, but perhaps the best pick may be Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
Scott is among the eight options publicly identified as being vetted, with the others being Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and J.D. Vance (R-OH), Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Among this list, Burgum, Carson, and Donalds don’t appear to add much to the ticket, Stefanik’s utility is questionable as well, and Vance’s lone political achievement thus far is a lackluster election result in 2022.
The three best picks would be Rubio, Cotton, and Scott. Cotton is a great, no-nonsense conservative who was out in front on COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter riots, but likely does not move the needle in a campaign. Rubio is solid, but would come with campaign headaches involving him changing his residency since both he and Trump are Florida residents.
This brings us to Scott, a great pick beyond the cynical notion that he could help peel off more black voters from President Joe Biden’s already dwindling support. Scott is no token black candidate. His mild-mannered attitude and happy-warrior style of conservatism would appeal to the suburbanites Trump needs to keep on his side, especially when countered with the racial backlash that would come from Democrats and their media allies.
Scott’s optimism for the country and his very existence as a black Republican disproves the Democratic Party’s racial fearmongering, which leads to such gems as white Democratic senators calling him a token and Washington Post fact-checkers saying Scott’s ancestors really didn’t have it all that bad in the Jim Crow South. Democrats cannot stand that Scott stands in the way of their political narrative, and the lunacy launched at him in response would be amplified tenfold given that his vice presidential opponent would be Kamala Harris.
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Scott is not perfect. He was too quick to adopt the Democratic Party’s racial narratives during the presidential primary to attack Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) (using a narrative pushed by Harris to do so). But that is why, while his happy warrior style was not cut out for the moment at the top of the ticket, he would be better as the second name under a more combative Republican such as Trump. Scott can be the optimist painting a picture for the future while serving under someone who is more willing to fight media narratives, as Trump showed when he stood by Judge Brett Kavanaugh amid a grotesque Democratic hit job.
Scott seems to be the best complement to Trump’s candidacy and the best foil to Biden and Harris’s race-obsessed campaign. For now, it appears that he is the best candidate on a decent list of running mates and the one who gives the GOP the best chance of maximizing its return in November.