Donald Trump is warming to the idea of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) being his running mate, according to NBC News.
The network reported Wednesday that Rubio is “moving up the list” of candidates to be Trump’s vice president pick, citing six sources familiar with the search.
Rubio, 52, is “young and telegenic,” could influence Latino voters as the son of Cuban immigrants and would be the first minority to appear on a GOP presidential ticket, NBC noted.
He also has a record of Trump allegiance. Rubio recently endorsed the idea of the Republican National Committee helping Trump pay his mounting legal bills.
The senator also downplayed Trump’s incendiary remark that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to other NATO countries. “He doesn’t talk like a traditional politician,” Rubio rationalized last month. “You think people would have figured it out.”
“It’s pretty clear from Trump’s orbit that Rubio is in play,” a Florida GOP operative told NBC. “It makes sense because he checks almost every box if they can get past both being from Florida.”
There are constitutional obstacles to a presidential ticket being from the same state (remember Trump changed his residence to Florida), but a workaround might be possible.
In 2000 Dick Cheney changed his voter registration from Texas to Wyoming to remove a possible impediment to his sharing the ticket with eventual President (and fellow Texas homeowner) George W. Bush.
A court later ruled that Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman who moved to Dallas to be chair of Halliburton Co. in the 1990s, was a Wyoming resident.
Other possibilities for Trump include Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.).
Someone in Trump’s camp told NBC the search was far from over.
“The list is long, and it’s extremely early in any kind of process,” the adviser said. “No one has been directly reached out to yet, and I do not expect that for some time.”
