As Pawlenty campaigns in New Hampshire, Romney to announce VP pick in Virginia
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will announce his vice presidential pick Saturday morning, according to a press release from the campaign. NBC News is reporting Romney has selected Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI. The move means former Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been passed over as the number two on the GOP ticket.
Romney is scheduled to make the announcement aboard the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia at 9:05 a.m. EDT. CNN is reporting that Pawlenty will not be in Virginia. He's scheduled to campaign for Romney in New Hampshire on Saturday.
"Tomorrow I won't be at the announcement. You can deduce from there that since I am keeping my schedule in New Hampshire, I can't also be in Virginia at the same time," said Pawlenty, who ran for the 2012 GOP nomination but dropped out in August of last year.
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Late Friday night, news outlets, including the conservative Weekly Standard, were reporting that Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee, was the likely Romney choice.
Pawlenty has been reportedly one of Romney's top picks. If Ryan is the pick, it will be the second time that Pawlenty was passed over for the job. John McCain seriously considered Pawlenty as his running mate in 2008 but ended up picking Sarah Palin.
Pawlenty will still be on the campaign trail this weekend for Romney. He's scheduled to be in New Hampshire on Saturday and will appear on NBC's Meet the Press and ABC's This Week on Sunday morning.
Update:
Pawlenty told several reporters that he isn't the pick. Here are some of his quotes.
Pawlenty says "I'm keeping my schedule tomorrow so I won't be in va and now we just have to wait for gov romney to announce his pick."
— Shushannah Walshe (@shushwalshe) August 11, 2012
Pawlenty: "I didn't enter this thinking I was going to be the VP candidate so I'm not disappointed and I'm excited about his candidacy"
— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) August 11, 2012
"This doesn't affect my attitude towards wanting him to be president," Pawlenty said. "Im going to continue to work really hard to help him"
— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) August 11, 2012
One of Romney's calculations in picking Ryan may be whether his vice president can help him win in a contested state. According to a New York Times analysis, choosing Ryan would give Pawlenty a slight advantage over President Barack Obama in Wisconsin; picking Pawlenty would expand Obama's advantage in Minnesota.
MPR's Tom Scheck contributed to this report.
This blog post has been changed for content and style as a result of new information coming in.