The race to be Trump’s VP: After Kristi Noem shot her dog (and herself) in the foot… here’s who is firming to be Donald’s new running mate

Republicans continue to be in a dogfight to win Donald Trump’s nomination for vice president, with Tim Scott and Doug Burgun rising in the ranks but Kristi Noem’s efforts having literally gone to the dogs. 

South Carolina Senator Scott checks off many of the boxes that former Vice President Mike Pence checked off, according to one anonymous senator.

‘I think he will want to have somebody who is not going to upstage him, who will be loyal to him, who will bring him something.’ 

That’s why I think Tim Scott will be an attractive pick for him because I think Tim’s very loyal, very well-spoken and smart,’ the senator said. 

Meanwhile, one-time frontrunner, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, is all but out of contention following revelations she shot dead her 14-month-old dog Cricket.

Several sources quoted by The Hill agree with the consensus in Republican circles that her campaign may be doomed.

‘She’s just done, too much drama,’ said one Republican senator who knows Trump’s thinking on the matter. 

Experts and GOP insiders believe that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Scott are making an impression on the former president.

Burgum – who like Scott, unsuccessfully ran for president – continues to rise in estimation in Trumpworld.

The senator who referred to Noem as ‘too much drama’ says Burgum can be credibly seen as a moderate on issues like abortion as Democrats will attempt to play it against the GOP in November.

Burgum is also himself a billionaire, giving him the ability to self-fund his presidential campaign.

Kari Lake is also seen as on the downward trend, with Trump not liking her losing campaign for governor and longshot bid to replace Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate.

Some Republicans were willing to go on record to suggest that the issue with shooting her dog was a killer for Noem.

‘I think shooting a puppy is very hard to explain to anybody and I think that hurt her pretty badly,’ said Mitt Romney, himself a one-time presidential candidate.

‘I can’t imagine that, doing that. I was pretty stunned when I read it,’ West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Caputo told The Hill. 

U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance; and congresswoman Elise Stefanik all attended an event at Mar-a-Lago this weekend with Scott that many saw as part of the VP vetting process.

Scott remains the favorite on Poylmarket, which allows people to bet on the VP race, followed by Vance, Rubio, Stefanik and Dr. Ben Carson. 

Noem currently places ninth, tied for the same odds as independent candidate for president and former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Vivek Ramaswamy also maintain longshot bids. 

This comes as President Joe Biden has recently overtaken the GOP’s assumed candidate Trump in the betting odds of who’ll win the election, with people favoring the Democrat by a little over a percentage point.

Noem’s dog controversy, which has gotten even her fellow conservatives riled up and angry at her on social media, has forced Noem to do damage control.

‘I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch,’ she wrote Sunday on X. ‘The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.’

‘As I explained in the book, it wasn’t easy. But often the easy way isn’t the right way.’ 

The book, titled No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, will be released on May 7.

In it, Noem writes about the dog she shot at the gravel pit on her family property, moments before her children came home from school.

The dog, Noem claimed, had an ‘aggressive personality’ that couldn’t be tamed – as evidenced by the fact that Cricket ruined a pheasant hunt for being ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.’ 

Additionally when the South Dakota governor took Cricket with her to meet a local family the dog started killing the family’s chickens like ‘a trained assassin.’

According to a book excerpt obtained by the Guardian, Cricket ‘grabbed one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.’ 

When Noem finally grabbed the dog she wrote that Cricket ‘whipped around to bite me.’

Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy.’ Meanwhile the chickens’ owner wept.

Noem said she wrote a check ‘for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.’ 

‘I hated that dog,’ Noem wrote, believing the 14-month-old pooch to be ‘untrainable,’ ‘dangerous to anyone she came in conatct with’ and ‘less than worthless … as a hunting dog.’ 

So she decided to kill Cricket.

‘At that moment,’ the governor wrote. ‘I realized I had to put her down.’ 

She shot Cricket at the family’s gravel pit. 

The revelation has proved unpopular and damaging to her reputation across the board, which Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana noted.

‘Bipartisan outrage! I was just amazed that for once there was not a Blue America, there was not a Red America, there was one America,’ Cassidy said.

‘That’s just like crazy. Why would you do that to a puppy? It’s just crazy,’ he said.