The field of potential top of the ticket candidates include a wide range of possibilities: Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Mike Pence, and many more. Any of them could benefit from sharing the spotlight with a conservative woman rising star who has real national security bona fides and hails from the state with the first primary elections in the 2016 cycle.
“Her prospects are good. Why not Pence-Ayotte or Walker-Ayotte?” said Weekly Standard Editor and conservative power-broker Bill Kristol. “Defense and foreign policy will be a big issue, and she's a leader on that. And since she’s already on the vice presidential short list, she might want to look at running for the top job.”
Compared to some of the other prospective candidates, Ayotte’s resume stacks up. Ayotte, who is also up for reelection in 2016, came into the senate at the same time as Paul and Rubio and has two years more experience as a legislator than Cruz. Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain's 2008 presidential bid, said that the other GOP senators vying for national office all have huge flaws whereas Ayotte does not.
“There are fundamental questions around their electability and around Paul’s ability on some issues to navigate himself toward the majority opinion of the GOP. Cruz is toxic and has no chance of national electability. Rubio damaged himself during the immigration debate,” he said. “The reality for Republicans is that it couldn’t possibly be more open.”
Ayotte is also one of the only female GOP top personalities that could counter a Democratic ticket with Hillary Clinton at its top, and at a time when the Republican party has been reeling from a number of scandals that have left the party vulnerable to the accusation that they are not savvy at courting the women’s vote.
