What Vance Would Bring to the Ticket

With Biden’s numbers collapsing, there may be several new ways for Donald Trump to put together enough Electoral College votes to win. But I’ve become dubious about some of the advice he’s getting. One of the pieces of advice is that J. D. Vance brings nothing politically to the ticket. Ohio is a red state now, especially with Trump at the top of the ticket. Vance is a “confidence pick” where Trump is simply doubling down on the MAGA brand. Or at best, he’s “a governing pick” because his Senate office has shown an early talent for translating MAGA sentiment into policy ideas, and has made attempts to persuade other legislators to get on board.

I think this undersells Vance.

First, it’s actually important for Trump to double down on the MAGA brand, and Vance helps with these voters. By becoming president and passing existing Republican legislation — and leaving some major populist items undone — he has partly tarnished his reputation with these voters, and it showed in 2020. His troubles in reelection were with white men. He lost the blue-wall states in part because of these very reversals.

Some say Vance isn’t a strong sell, and they show the delta between his results and Governor Mike DeWine’s in Ohio. To that, I say: DeWine was running his tenth election and had a nobody as an opponent. Meanwhile, Vance survived a Hunger Games–style Republican primary, ran as much more socially conservative than DeWine, and faced one of the most well-funded Democratic Senate candidates in the country, who vastly outspent him during the heart of campaign season. Vance has been genuinely embraced by Donald Trump Jr. — the most traditionally conservative member of the Trump family, and one of the more dynamic speakers on the Republican hustings the past several years.

Vance is young and closer to the problems of young people: the shocking hospital bills that come along with a first child, the suddenly daunting interest rates on a first family home. He is unmistakably “non-Boomer” in appearance (the beard), affect, and in his political priorities. He’s closer to the age where you know people from school who have died from overdose. He knows what substance abuse does to families and communities.

Vance is also like a lot of voters Trump is going to need to drive to the polls: He is someone who had an initial hysterically negative reaction to Trump. I think Democrats will try to use Vance’s previous statements on Trump, wondering if he could be “America’s Hitler,” in their commercials. It won’t work. This was a hysterical and absurd thing to say when Vance said it, and he will be more than capable of turning it around and telling a hostile press that, like millions of Americans, his initial judgment of Trump has changed.

Trump’s campaign in 2024 is very different from the one he ran in 2016. It’s far more professional, and it’s far more traditionally Republican in tone. It’s remarkably disciplined in some aspects, and he’s throwing fewer bombs. By muting the Republican platform on the issue of abortion and guns, Trump is already making all the moves toward the “Youngkin” voters in the suburbs. Adding Vance to the ticket can reassure those voters in rural areas — the forgotten men and women — that there is still someone on the Republican ticket who will speak bluntly about their concerns and problems.