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Donald J. Trumps announcement of his running mate is coming soon: He has suggested he is likely to unveil the pick during the Republican National Convention, which starts July 15 in Milwaukee.

Ambitious Republicans have been jockeying to court his favor, campaigning for him and even showing up to his New York criminal trial. Trump has been weighing possible parameters, like whether someone with fund-raising prowess would be most helpful, and if choosing a person of color or a woman would give him the biggest electoral lift.

Either way, Mar-a-Lago courtiers generally agree that any rsum for the No. 2 spot on the ticket must include some Trump-specific requirements that defy demographics: absolute loyalty to the Trump brand, a willingness to filter every decision and public comment through a subservient lens, and the know-it-when-you-see-it central casting look the former president prizes.

Heres a look at some possible contenders.

Household names in national politics, these are some of the figures most often floated as possible running mates.

A senator from South Carolina, Scott ran for president but dropped out in November.

Al Drago/EPA, via Shutterstock

The Florida senator, a rival to Trump in 2016, has hummed along as a reliable Trump ally and leading Republican voice on foreign policy issues.

Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

A staunch and provocative conservative, Cotton has been seen as one of the Republican Party's rising figures.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Haley, a former United Nations ambassador under Trump and a former governor of South Carolina, was his final Republican rival in 2024.

Samuel Corum for The New York Times

Stefanik, a five-term congresswoman, has morphed from a Bush administration staff member into a prominent Trump supporter.

Hans Pennink/Associated Press

Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas, was a fixture in the Trump administration, first as C.I.A. director and then as secretary of state.

Al Drago for The New York Times

For any potential Trump sidekick, a track record of accomplishments is nice to have. A track record of fealty may be even more important.

The best-selling author and former venture capitalist is now a senator from Ohio, thanks largely to a Trump endorsement.

Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

A retired neurosurgeon who ran against Trump in 2016, Carson served under Trump as secretary of housing and urban development.

Trumps former White House press secretary, she parlayed the exposure that gave her into the Arkansas governors office.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

A senator and former Florida governor, Scott has an untarnished electoral record in one of the nations biggest political battlegrounds.

Al Drago/The New York Times

A former House member from Texas who served as the director of national intelligence in Trumps administration.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

A governor and a former congresswoman, Noem has welcomed speculation that she could be invited to join the ticket.

Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

Lesser known on the national stage, these politicians could provide the ticket with a fresh face.

A second-term congressman who has made a name for himself in Washington as an avatar for the next generation of pro-Trump Republicans.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

A freshman in the House and a retired Army Apache helicopter pilot, he has become one of the partys rising stars.

Suzanne Cordeiro/Agence France-Presse Getty Images

A wealthy entrepreneur, Ramaswamy built his presidential bid around his devotion to Trump, and many Republican voters responded warmly.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

A House member from South Carolina who was the first female military recruit to graduate from the Citadel.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

A first-term senator from Alabama and the states first woman ever elected to the office Britt has been seen as one of the partys young talents.

Theyre long shots, yes. But Donald Trump is far from a predictable politician.

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who ran for president in 2020, became an independent in 2022.

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North Dakotas governor came up well short in the 2024 Republican presidential race. But he did put himself in the conversation for the partys No. 2 slot.

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The former Fox News anchor is widely viewed as one of the ideological godfathers of Trumpian Republicanism.

Saul Martinez for The New York Times

Lake, a prominent election denier, narrowly lost the 2022 Arizona governors race.

Rebecca Noble for The New York Times

A far-right conspiracy theorist, Greene is one of Trumps top surrogates on the campaign trail.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Who Could Be Trumps VP Pick? - The New York Times

A Hollywood fund-raiser Saturday night intended to bolster President Bidens war chest turned into a platform for some of the most concerted and toughest attacks to date on former President Donald J. Trump by the Biden campaign, as entertainers, Barack Obama and even Jill Biden assailed Mr. Trumps ethics and his suitability to return to the White House.

Dr. Biden, after being introduced by Barbra Streisand, said the choice was between her husband, who honors the rule of law instead of trying to bend it to his way, and Mr. Trump, who wakes up every morning caring about one person and one person only: himself.

Mr. Trump has told us again and again why he wants the White House to give himself absolute power, to not be held accountable for his criminal action, Dr. Biden continued. His aim, she told the crowd, was to destroy the democratic safeguards that stand in his way.

Mr. Obama invoked Mr. Trumps felony convictions something that Mr. Biden has for the most part avoided doing to applause from the crowd.

We have the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts, Mr. Obama said. Listing off a series of what he described as offenses by Mr. Trump, he noted that you have his organization being prosecuted for not paying taxes. Set aside all the other stuff he says

President Biden picked up his microphone: He paid none.

The tenor of the event in downtown Los Angeles was different from another star-studded fund-raiser just three months ago at Radio City Music Hall. The shift came after Mr. Trump was convicted by a New York jury on May 30 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, a verdict that produced a surge of contributions from his supporters that narrowed the fund-raising gap between the two candidates and raised concerns among Democrats across the country, nowhere more than in Los Angeles.

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At Biden Fund-Raiser, Hollywood and Democrats Let the Trump Attacks Fly - The New York Times

In 2016, J.D. Vances best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, made him one of Americas leading interpreters of Trumpism, offering a personal narrative of populisms origins in working-class disarray.

In 2024, as a first-term United States senator from Ohio, Vance is arguably Americas leading Trumpist: a staunch ally of Donald Trump, a leading critic of the establishment consensus (or what remains of it) in both foreign and domestic politics, a potential vice-presidential candidate and a likely populist agenda-setter for a second Trump term.

The Vance of eight years ago was read with appreciation and gratitude by Trump opponents looking for a window into populism. The Vance of today is despised and feared by many of the same kind of people. His transformation is one of the most striking political stories of the Trump era, and one thats likely to influence Republican politics even after Trump is gone.

I've known Vance since before he assumed either of these identities. For this conversation, I spoke to him about how he sees his own evolution, his relationship to the American elite and to Trump himself, his views on populist economics and Americas support for Ukraine. He also offered a combative (and, to my mind, fundamentally unsupported and unpersuasive) defense of Trumps conduct after the 2020 election. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

J.D., the first time I realized that Hillbilly Elegy, was going to be a phenomenon was in August 2016. I was in Rockland, Maine, in a cozy little tourist bookstore. I tried to buy the book for my wife, and they said, Oh, we had four or five copies and they all sold out in the last week.

Looking back, almost certainly most of the people who bought the book in that little bookstore were educated liberals baffled by the Donald Trump phenomenon, who liked your book not just for its literary merits but also because they felt like here was a guy who was sympathetic to people voting for Trump but who was also at that time vehemently opposed to him.

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Opinion | J.D. Vance on Where Hed Take the Republican Party - The New York Times

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the hush money trial of former president Donald Trump that returned 34 felony convictions, ought never to have accepted the case. And Merchan surely should have stepped away once Trumps lawyers moved that he disqualify himself.

Yes, in response to that request, an appeals court ruled last month that Trump has not established that he has a clear right to recusal. But I expect that such clarity will emerge in the appeal of Trumps conviction, which will be filed soon after his sentencing next month.

Many legal analysts who have assessed the case, finding it a disturbing aberration in how criminal law ought to be used and criminal trials conducted, have nominated their favorite most compelling argument for Trumps success on appeal. Mine goes to Merchans astonishing decision to preside in the first place.

Begin in July 2023, when New York states Commission on Judicial Conduct reprimanded Merchan, sending him a caution because the judge had made contributions to President Bidens reelection campaign and to two anti-Republican and anti-Trump political action committees: Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans. New York absolutely prohibits its judges from making such political contributions (see below), and while the rebuke delivered to Merchan was not made public Reuters broke the story last month it will be much discussed in the months between now and the election.

Merchan donated $15 to the Biden campaign and $10 to each of the two committees. Why would anyone make such symbolic statements, having taken an oath to be a judge and abide by the judicial code of ethics? We cannot know, but it is plausible that Merchan needed to plant three flags to signal to Team Biden he would make a fine federal judge. Or perhaps he just loves Biden. Or perhaps Juan Merchan just detests Trump. We dont know because the judge was never obliged to answer such questions.

A caution does not include any penalty, but it can be considered in any future cases reviewed by the states Commission on Judicial Conduct, the New York Times reported in May. A letter outlining the caution was not released because of the commissions rules, and Justice Merchan did not make the letter available.

Reuters added, Under [the New York] commission rules, a caution may be taken into consideration in the event of any future misconduct.

Last year, New Yorks Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics ruled that Merchan would not have to recuse himself after the Trump legal team raised not only the judges contributions to Democratic organizations but also his daughters work for Democrats and Merchans alleged suggestion to a former Trump Organization executive last year that he cooperate against Trump in the companys tax fraud case.

But the judicial ethics advisory committees advice is not binding. Merchan was free to remove himself and should have. If Merchans outright support for forces aligned against a defendant in his courtroom wasnt disqualifying, then lets hear no more of the (ludicrous) calls for Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.s recusal from Jan. 6-related cases because some people disapprove of his wifes choice of flags to display.

In a recent episode of the podcast The McCarthy Report, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy and National Review editor Rich Lowry detailed 10 grounds on which the Trump legal team could demand that the verdicts against Trump be tossed out. An appeal that stays the sentencing (which is set for July 11) requires a colorable claim of error, and McCarthy opined that the Merchans conduct amounted to a coloring book of such claims.

Just for starters, appeals courts must reassess the significance of Merchans $35 in political donations. The advisory committees opinion is not dispositive on the issue of recusal nor is the first appeals courts decision. Those refusals to recuse will have to be studied in light of Merchans many rulings against Trump in the course of the trial.

Is there any doubt, outside feverish anti-Trump circles, that Merchan was compromised by his donations? He got a slap on the wrist from the judicial conduct commission, perhaps because the offense was Merchans first and the amount of the donations was so small. The judges lack of awareness regarding the appearance of impropriety arising from his contributions, or simple indifference to it, was abetted by the advisory committee, but the commission clearly rebuked the judge last summer for the contributions. Merchans decision not to recuse is mystifying.

Consider these particulars from New Yorks rules governing judicial conduct:

Section 100.2 provides A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judges activities.

Section 100.4(A) provides A judge shall conduct all of the judges extra-judicial activities so that they do not: (1) cast reasonable doubt on the judges capacity to act impartially as a judge

Section 100.5(A)(1) provides Neither a sitting judge nor a candidate for public election to judicial office shall directly or indirectly engage in any political activity except (i) as otherwise authorized by this section or by law, (ii) to vote and to identify himself or herself as a member of a political party

Section 100.5(A)(1)(h) spells it out: A New York judge may not make a contribution to a political organization or candidate.

Merchan is a partisan, and a robe doesnt disguise the team jersey with the great big D he is wearing underneath it.

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Opinion | Why Trump will win on appeal: Judge Merchan should have recused - The Washington Post - The Washington Post

Former President Donald J. Trump stood in blazing heat in a Las Vegas park on Sunday and directly appealed to working-class voters by promising to eliminate taxes on tips for hospitality workers.

But beyond that proposal, little at Mr. Trumps campaign rally suggested that his new status as a felon had changed his message. And when Mr. Trumps teleprompter apparently stopped working, his speech which his campaign advisers had billed as focused on issues of local concern to Nevada voters devolved into familiar stories and riffs.

I got no teleprompters, and I havent from the beginning, Mr. Trump said after speaking for roughly 15 minutes, though his speech included excerpts from prepared remarks that his campaign had provided to reporters. That probably means well make a better speech now.

Mr. Trump repeatedly voiced his frustration with the lack of a teleprompter, even though he has often boasted of his ability to give long speeches without one.

His remarks, which lasted roughly an hour, felt unfocused as he cycled through well-worn territory, railing against electric vehicles, immigration, the four criminal cases brought against him and President Bidens physical and mental condition.

Once again, Mr. Trump broadly depicted migrants crossing the border illegally as violent criminals or mentally ill people, and then recited The Snake, a standby poem he has used since 2016 to expound on the threat that he believes undocumented immigrants pose to the country.

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In Las Vegas, Trump Appeals to Local Workers and Avoids Talk of Conviction - The New York Times