One of the biggest questions about former President Donald Trump's 2024 re-election campaign -- presuming, of course, that he wins the Republican Party's nomination -- is who he will pick to be his running mate and potential vice president in a second term.
One new and rather surprising name was just floated in that regard by the former campaign manager and senior adviser Steve Bannon -- Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Conservative Brief reported.
During a recent episode of his "War Room" podcast, Bannon predicted that the pairing of Trump and Kennedy in 2024, as unlikely as it may seem, could prove to be an "unstoppable force" in terms of ousting President Joe Biden from office.
"RFK Jr. is not going to win the Democratic nomination. The reason is that hard-core Democrats are not going to vote for him," Bannon said on his show. "If you look at the polling, his voters, that 19 to 20 plus percent, whatever it is right now in the polling, are people that voted for Obama twice looking for a change and many of whom voted for Trump in ’16.
"What you have is this anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, populist movement that doesn’t trust the administrative state, doesn’t trust the deep state," he asserted.
Bannon advised his audience to listen closely to what all of the other GOP candidates were talking about and compare it with what Kennedy was talking about on the campaign trail, and said, "You see the Venn diagram. There’s a much bigger overlap, potential overlap with what President Trump’s talking about. So this is something that’s emerging and you got to keep your eye on it. Is it perfect? No. We live in a very imperfect world. But you see something that’s aborning right here."
He added that Kennedy was being mocked and dismissed by the mainstream media as an unserious candidate in much the same way they had treated Trump in the 2016 election.
Bannon's numbers in regard to Kennedy's polling were a bit off, as the RealClearPolitics average currently shows him at around 14 percent among Democratic primary voters, but that doesn't change the jist of his point.
And, as the Conservative Brief pointed out, if just half of those voters stuck with Kennedy and voted in November 2024 for a prospective Trump-Kennedy ticket, that could very well spell the demise of President Biden's chances to win a second term in office -- particularly in light of all of the other polls that strongly suggest that Biden's base of support is weak and comprised of Democrats who have doubts about his capability to serve and would really prefer he not run again.
Meanwhile, another seemingly unlikely prospective running mate for former President Trump was also floated recently by Politico -- Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), despite the fact that she was harshly critical of him following the 2020 election and Jan. 6 Capitol riot as well as Trump endorsing a primary challenger against her last year.
Mace has somewhat surprisingly emerged over the past few weeks and months as one of Trump's most ardent defenders against the criminal indictments against him from partisan prosecutors in Washington D.C. and New York City, and that has not gone unnoticed in Trump's camp, the outlet reported.
It was further noted that, were Mace to be Trump's VP pick, she could potentially help him win back some of the suburban women voters he's lost over the years, help deliver South Carolina -- whether in the primary or general election -- and it doesn't hurt that she has a history of her own of bucking the GOP establishment and adopting contrary positions on issues that better match the broader population in comparison to just Republican voters.
To be sure, there has been ample speculation for months about who former President Trump might pick as his running mate, and given the prevailing theory that he will most likely pick a woman who will be a loyal fighter, Axios offered up in March a slate of four probable contenders in that regard.
That list included former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem -- all of whom have been generally strong defenders of the former president.
