The 5 people who could be Trump's VP

Who will he pick?!

Donald Trump will beat Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. Then, a week from Tuesday, he will beat her in all of the Super Tuesday states.

At which point, the race for the Republican nomination will be over. Like, really over. Even Haley, my guess, will acknowledge she has zero path to be the GOP nominee and drop her candidacy.

(Sidebar: The only real question is whether Haley eventually endorses Trump. My STRONG sense is that she will.)

These are not things that may happen. These are things that will happen — barring some sort of unforeseen cataclysm regarding Trump’s health.

The real drama on the Republican side of the ledger then is not whether Trump will be the nominee but rather who he will pick to be his vice presidential nominee.

Trump has spoken openly about the pick of late — often in contradictory terms.

During a town hall on Fox News earlier this week, Trump said this of the VP: “So the one thing that always surprises me is that the VP choice has absolutely no impact. It's whoever the president is, it just seems.”

In that SAME town hall — literally moments later — Trump said this of the pick: “So I think it's very important but look, first is that as we said, it has to, you know, do with whoever is, you know, it's a very important position for that reason. You would like to get somebody that could help you from the voter standpoint.”

Uh…

Trump has also said that he already knows who he will choose as his running mate AND that he will make his mind up in the next few months.

I say all of this to make sure you understand this: Below are my rankings of the 5 people I think Donald Trump is most likely to pick as VP today. But, this list can and will change because, well, Trump is utterly changeable. He is VERY much a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately type. He falls in and out of love with people very, very quickly.

With that caveat, let’s do this thing!