Potential Trump Vice President visits West Michigan

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum speaks to News 8 on June 20, 2024.

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (WOOD) — As Republicans prepare for their presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee next month, the campaign is heating up in swing states like Michigan.

The Trump campaign had a key surrogate in West Michigan on Thursday, and he sat down for a conversation with News 8 political reporter Rick Albin.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum appears to be an unlikely spokesperson for the Trump campaign. The two-term governor had himself sought a presidential run earlier this year, but withdrew from the campaign when it became clear that Trump would be the nominee.

But now Burgum may still be able to secure a spot on the national ballot. Bookmakers consider him the most likely candidate on a vice presidential list that also includes Marco Rubio, JD Vance and Tim Scott. Burgum declined to comment directly on his future, but spoke a lot about why he believes the nation needs a change in Washington.

“This election is going to be about what matters in every election. People ask themselves before they vote: Am I better off today than I was four years ago? Sometimes that’s a theoretical question when you have an incumbent president against an unknown. Here we have a known and an unknown. That is, even though everyone said all these things would happen, we can look at the facts and when President Trump was in office, the economy was thriving and the world was at peace. And that’s the opposite of what we have now.”

The full conversation with Burgum will be the subject of a future “To The Point” broadcast.

But starting this week, the show will also feature exclusive interviews with all six candidates in the Republican and Democratic primaries running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Each candidate was asked a series of questions on the same topics, and you can hear their varied answers on “To The Point” starting this week and for the next three weeks.