Jeff Sessions certainly makes Donald Trump’s slightly-less-short VP list

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich make up Donald Trump’s short list for the VP nod, but Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions certainly makes the slightly less-short list.

Sessions was the first senator to back Trump’s White House bid, and in many ways he has been on board the Trump platform since before Trump decided what it was.

Long before he donned a “Make America Great Again” hat at a February rally in Alabama, Sessions espoused some of the same outsider views that Trump’s candidacy have turned into the new normal in the GOP.

When it comes to immigration, possibly Trump’s biggest selling point to voters, Sessions made it clear long ago he wouldn’t support any bill with amnesty for illegal immigrants.

When it comes to trade, Trump’s foothold with Rust Belt voters, Sessions was one of the first lawmakers to speak out against the Trade Promotion Authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, though the four-term senator has voted for other trade deals in the past.

Christie can’t say the same about his immigration stance, and Gingrich certainly isn’t as pure when it comes to Trump’s anti-trade platform — the former House Speaker just change his position in July.

Whether he would add anything to the Trump ticket, however, appears to be the biggest argument against Sessions as VP. He’s Trump’s ideological doppelgänger, sure, but it’s not like the GOP nominee needs a lot of help in Alabama, and the 69-year-old wouldn’t exactly drive any youth to the voting booth.

Still, Sessions seems to be on the bleeding edge of the shift in GOP politics toward Trump and has said he would be “honored” to run with Trump in the fall.