South Dakota governor and confessed dog killer Kristi Noem has been struck from Donald Trump’s latest list of potential running mates, according to a report.
The Trump campaign has requested personal information for eight possible vice presidential picks, Politico reported. Noem, long suspected to be a top veep candidate, was not named.
Despite numerous predictions that Trump would pick a woman as his running mate in the 2024 White House race, the list only includes one: New York Rep Elise Stefanik. The seven others are Ohio Senator JD Vance; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; South Carolina Senator Tim Scott; Florida Rep Byron Donalds; Florida Senator Marco Rubio; Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton; and former Trump Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
The Independent has emailed Governor Noem’s office for comment.
Her absence from Trump’s VP shortlist comes weeks after a dog-related incident in her new book grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The Republican released a tell-all memoir, which included an anecdote about shooting her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer Cricket, which she described as “untrainable” and “less than worthless… as a hunting dog”.
The backlash to the story grew so intense that Amazon restricted the review section for her book, titled No Going Back, so that only “verified” purchasers could write posts.
Noem doubled down following the widespread criticism.
“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years,” she posted on X.
In another post, she continued: “I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book.”
It’s unclear how much the firestorm factored into Trump’s VP list consideration.
Some reports said that her chances of joining the Trump ticket were dead in the water long before the dog-killing story surfaced. Six sources told Politico in March that she had been “cast aside” as Mr Trump’s potential running mate.
In mid-May, Trump said in a podcast interview that Noem was “terrific” and admitted she had weathered “a couple of rough stories, there’s no question about it.” He later added: “She had a bad week. We all have bad weeks.”
