Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sparked speculation about his vice presidential search after meeting with three of his top candidates earlier this week.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie campaigned with Trump in Virginia Beach on Monday. Then, Trump visited Indiana Governor Mike Pence at his Indianapolis home following a dinner on Tuesday, and planned to meet with former House speaker Newt Gingrich as well.
“According to a Trump ally, the candidate and his family decided over the weekend to meet with each of the leading contenders as Trump continued to deliberate,” Jose A. DelReal and Robert Costa of The Washington Post reported.
A campaign source reported that Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s family members planned an intervention, traveling to Indiana Wednesday after speculation that Trump’s positive meeting with Christie was moving him away from choosing Pence as his right-hand man.
“After meeting Trump, Pence told aides Wednesday he expects ‘business as usual’ in the governor’s office — but also indirectly confirmed that he’d accept the vice presidential nod if offered, and would remain Indiana governor through November’s election, rather than resigning his post to focus on the campaign,” CNN noted.
Roll Call reported Pence is the front-runner.
“Gov. Mike Pence is dropping his re-election bid in Indiana to become Donald Trump’s running mate,” IndyStar announced.
Hope Hicks, Trump’s national spokeswoman, clarified Trump has not made his final decision, and will make his decision Friday.
With Pence as the probable winner, the question becomes: do his values align with millennial voters?
“Millennials care deeply about their futures and in this election cycle they are laser-focused on issues like access to educational opportunity, women’s equality, and the economy,” Harvard Institute of Politics Director Maggie Williams observed.
Pence and Trump parallel on Trump’s two central issues: immigration and trade. Millennials do not share Trump’s view on immigration, according to the USA Today/Rock the Vote poll.
“Millennials support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants by more than 2 to 1, or 68 percent to 26 percent,” the poll suggests.
Trump’s aggressive approach does not align with that of millennials, as some 20-t0-30-somethings have made statements referring to immigrants as “contributing in a great way,” one said in the survey.
Pence presented an immigration proposal in 2006 to create a guest worker program. Since its rejection, he’s aligned more closely with Trump’s approach, taking “a harder line on immigration,” CBS News reported.
“I know in the College Republicans group here, we probably have about 80 students, and there may be three that like Donald Trump,” Kyle Foley, a sophomore at the University of Central Florida told The Washington Times before attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC.) “A lot of us don’t like him because he’s incredibly divisive, he doesn’t have a lot of substance, and any policy he has is just a talking point.”
With Pence the likely VP, and a clear generation gap between millennial voters and the 70-year-old businessman, it will take some creative strategy on Pence and Trump’s part to draw in millennials with whom Trump and Pence are out of step.
