Trump Boots Anti-Abortion Extremists From His VP Shortlist

Once a veep front-runner, Kristi Noem’s abortion extremism could eliminate her from contention. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

There has been much debate about whether Democrats can succeed in making abortion policy — where they have a big public-opinion advantage — a central issue in the 2024 election. One indicator of their progress on this front is that abortion positioning appears to be having a major effect on Donald Trump’s choice of a running mate, one of the most consequential decisions he will have to make as Republican nominee.

Trump has sought to take the abortion issue off the table in the presidential contest by embracing a strict “states’ rights” position on the subject. That’s very likely to stick. After all, he easily got through a competitive Republican-nomination race without succumbing to pressure to support a national abortion ban, which multiple opponents were touting in an effort to outflank one another on the right. Now that the GOP’s abortion extremism has emerged as one of the strongest cards Joe Biden can play in order to make the election comparative rather than a simple referendum on his presidency, Trump will do everything possible to claim it’s not his issue and not his problem.

It’s not that easy, of course, for Trump and other national GOP figures to distance themselves from the atavistic efforts of their state-level allies to ban as many abortions as possible. For one thing, there’s the inconvenient fact that the ongoing assault on reproductive rights was made possible by Trump’s deliberate shaping of a U.S. Supreme Court willing to reverse Roe v. Wade (an accomplishment he continues to proudly proclaim). But the 2024 Republican nominee must also tread very carefully to avoid too much coziness with the Republicans whose extremism is helping Democrats make abortion an issue in every campaign from the presidential level to state legislative races. And that’s where the veepstakes come into play.

According to reporting from Puck’s Tara Palmeri, Trump is beginning to reassess his veep-prospect list to exclude, or at least downgrade, potential running mates closely associated with extreme state abortion bans:

[A] source close to Trump told me that since landing on the states rights position, he has explicitly changed his V.P. calculus, removing from his shortlist governors from states without exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest, or any state with a so-called “heartbeat bill” before 10 weeks.

Palmeri notes that this culling of the field could include Republican governors Kristi Noem of South Dakota — often considered the front-runner for the gig — Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, and Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who have helped enact total or near-total abortion bans in their states. You could add Greg Abbott of Texas to the list of excessively pro-life governors and perhaps Ron DeSantis of Florida, though he has probably never been seriously considered for VP thanks to his failed challenge to Trump in the primaries. So you have the irony that Trump going all states’ rights on abortion means taking a lot of state leaders off his veep list.

But the fear factor on abortion could go even further and taint the veepability of congressional Republicans who have either conspicuously favored highly restrictive policies or are from states with extreme abortion bans they did not oppose. That could be a double whammy for Tim Scott, who vocally favored a national abortion ban on the presidential campaign trail and whose home state, South Carolina, recently enacted a six-week abortion ban.

Which veep prospects could benefit from Trump’s preoccupation with distancing himself from abortion extremism? Palmeri thinks J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are moving up the list. Both have taken extreme positions on abortion in the past but haven’t really stood out lately on the subject; Ohio voters recently approved a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Vance opposed but didn’t dwell on. Rubio’s Florida residence, meanwhile, is a dual problem: He may not be able to distance himself from his state’s own battle over a pro-choice ballot initiative, and, more important, he might have to give up his Senate seat and move elsewhere to run as veep given the 12th Amendment’s ban on a state giving its electoral votes to two of its own citizens.

Much like Vance, Elise Stefanik has talked up abortion restrictions but isn’t personally identified with them; her recent practice of slavishly saying and doing whatever Trump wants will probably serve her well on this particular topic. Her state of New York is also voting on a pro-choice constitutional amendment in November, but it’s so certain to pass that it won’t get the kind of national attention that ballot initiatives in Arizona, Florida, and possibly Nevada will secure.

Long-shot veep prospects Marjorie Taylor Greene and Katie Britt are from states with extreme abortion bans. At the other end of the spectrum is the even-longer-shot ex-Democrat prospect Tulsi Gabbard. She’s from the very pro-choice state of Hawaii but supported anti-abortion measures early in her career and has recently backed others as she’s evolved toward MAGA-land.

It’s entirely possible that Trump is simply using a strange new Goldilocks abortion litmus test (not too hot, not too cold) to eliminate potential running mates he has decided against for other reasons. But it also reflects his understanding that this fraught issue that is so closely associated with his own conquest of the Republican Party could be a game changer in 2024.