Who do voters want as Trump’s VP? Top choice isn’t a Republican, New Hampshire poll says
When New Hampshire voters were asked who they would like to see as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, their top choice was surprisingly not a Republican.
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was the most popular choice for Granite State voters who don’t support President Joe Biden, according to a May 23 poll by the University of New Hampshire.
In the poll, 24% of respondents named Gabbard — who is now an independent — while 17% named former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and 13% named Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley all trailed behind with single-digit support.
The poll, conducted from May 16 to 20, sampled 1,258 New Hampshire voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Gabbard, who served in the House from 2013 to 2021, ran for president in 2020 as a Democrat, where she made non-interventionism a key platform of her campaign. She ended her run in March and endorsed then-candidate Joe Biden.
In 2022, Gabbard announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she said was “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
Shortly afterward, she became a Fox News contributor. In appearances on the network, she has been a vocal critic of Biden — comparing him to foreign dictators — and a supporter of Trump.
Trump revealed in February that Gabbard was under consideration to be his running mate, according to Hawaii News Now.
The following month, when asked about the possibility of being on the ticket, she told Fox News, “I would be honored to serve our country in that way and be in a position to help President Trump.”
Past polls have revealed voters favor a number of other candidates to serve as Trump’s vice presidential candidate.
In a March 4 YouGov poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, 62% of respondents said they would approve of DeSantis, followed by 58% who said they would approve of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
In a May 20 Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll of 1,660 registered voters, which asked them who they would like to see as Trump’s running mate, DeSantis once again topped the list, followed by Scott and Ramaswamy.
Trump said in May that he’ll announce his choice for vice president during the Republican National Convention, which begins on July 15, according to Politico.
This story was originally published May 24, 2024 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Who do voters want as Trump’s VP? Top choice isn’t a Republican, New Hampshire poll says."