JD Vance has been the odds-on favorite to become former president Donald Trump’s running mate for weeks now. A lot of folks were skeptical, but it played out as we (should have) expected on Monday when Trump made the choice official.
Vance has certainly taken a quick path to the top. He began his political life extremely skeptical of Trump, he has not been in national politics for long, and he’s served less than one term in the U.S. Senate. He has since reformed and become a pro-Trump conservative, though his particular brand of conservative is less Reaganite than some would hope for.
Still, he has enough fans within the Trump team and among conservatives that he got the job.
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None of that, however, is why I am concerned with Trump’s pick. The concern isn’t about Vance personally or his politics, but about what the choice says about Trump and the Trump campaign: They feel confident they are going to win. Perhaps too confident.
The debate marked a turning point for Trump. The media could no longer hide President Joe Biden’s age and mental lapses, and Democrats are losing their motivation to vote. The attempted assassination proved another turning point. At that moment, Trump’s base and skeptical Republicans no longer had any reason to miss election day. The base will be more motivated than ever to vote.
But, historically, the choice of a running mate is meant to bridge two different groups within a party OR attempt to bring in new voters. Vance is not someone Trump needs to win the Republican establishment over, as other picks through history have been – like Mike Pence or George H.W. Bush – nor does he grab any other wing of the party Trump didn’t already have, like we’ve seen throughout history – Lyndon B. Johnson being added to John F. Kennedy’s ticket, for example.
Vance also doesn’t offer an olive branch to any particular demographic that Trump could use to bolster his ranks, or at least diminish the Democrats’ ranks, as Tim Scott or Marco Rubio could have. Nor does he bring in a ton of extra money, as Doug Burgum would have.
That signals, to me at least, that Trump didn’t feel the need to expand his tent. That may not be an entirely wrong instinct, given the current lay of the land, but it does show a sense of confidence that one really needs to be wary of. Even with things the way they are right now, Trump isn’t guaranteed a win, and the GOP needs to do everything it can to not only pick up the White House but also pick up the Senate and extend the majority in the House.
While the Democrats and their allies in the media may be taking it (slightly) easier on Trump in the wake of Saturday’s events, they have no reason to pull their punches on Vance. Already, we’re seeing them play on practically a loop Vance’s previous comments on Trump, which include a reference to Hitler. Vance has since admitted he’s changed his views and that Trump has won him over, but the media won’t let that go.
After all, Vance used to hate Trump and was extremely critical of Trump’s rise. He left their team to play for the other team, and that makes him just as horrible as Trump in their eyes. So they’re definitely going to be laying the groundwork to call Vance a Trump enabler, an extreme MAGA Republican and, eventually, they’ll crown him as officially “Worse Than Trump.”
Vance isn’t a bad pick in my mind. He’s not the guy I would have chosen by any means, but he does give Trump the ability to hand his legacy off to someone with similar ideas ahead of 2028. But the fact that Vance doesn’t really expand the ticket’s appeal all that much is a sign that the Trump campaign is confident about 2024. I just worry that they may get too confident and lose their way.
