Now that South Carolina's primary voters overwhelmingly backed Donald Trump over home-state candidate Nikki Haley, the nomination seems to be a lock for the former president. Haley insists that she will soldier on through next week's Super Tuesday states, but Trump's lead in national polling is growing wider rather than narrowing. Given that South Carolina provided Haley her best shot at friendly turf in GOP primaries, it seems quite unlikely now that her campaign will remain active for much longer.

With the nomination fight all over but for the shouting, it's time to turn our attention to the  key choice Trump faces now: the choice of running mate and potential Vice President. Needless to say, we have all spent a lot of time focusing on the one-heartbeat-away issues in the current administration and why this choice matters, perhaps more than ever. Trump will turn 78 this year, and while he's a remarkably vital 78, that's how old Joe Biden was when he was elected in 2020. One cannot assume much at these ages.

So who should Trump choose? While Republican voters seem to favor the candidates who ran in the 2024 nomination race, the only one of those really situated for that transition is Senator Tim Scott. Both he and Ron DeSantis immediately endorsed Trump, but Scott was clearly more enthusiastic about it. Plus, DeSantis has an executive job that runs almost another three years, and can focus on 2028.

Nikki Haley has pretty much burned that bridge, although nothing is irreparable in politics. George H.W. Bush joined up with Ronald Reagan after attacking his "voodoo economics," for instance. However, I don't think she's inclined to do it either, temperamentally or politically. 

Without dragging this out too much, I'd advise Trump to look to the governors, especially because of the one-heartbeat-away issue. If Trump has Kristi Noem or Sarah Huckabee Sanders on the ticket, not only would he have someone on the bench who's actually run a large-scale bureaucracy, he'd have a clear advantage over Biden on that issue alone. Plus, either woman would run circles around Kamala Harris in a televised debate, although that's pretty much true of any of the obvious choices in the Veepstakes.

What say you? Cast your vote in our new HotAir/Townhall Veepstakes Reader Poll! We'll get the results, both overall and site-specific, as we wait for Trump to decide. Since that's likely to be closer to the convention, we should get a few cycles of polling from this, and we'll keep you updated as we go along. 

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