Both the vice-presidential picks in this election cycle have reflected, in their own ways, optimism on the part of the campaigns doing the picking. Time will tell who was right to feel that way.
In selecting JD Vance, a 39-year-old elected to his first office in 2022 as junior US Senator from Ohio, Trump chose a partner for his ticket who is young, inexperienced, intellectual, ideologically sharp-edged, and highly embedded in the power structure of the Trumpist right.
Vance brings little by way of independent contribution to the ticket’s electoral hopes. He underperformed relative to what one would expect of a Republican in his election in Ohio, a state Trump is in any case almost certain to carry regardless. Although he wrote a celebrated book, Hillbilly Elegy, about the hard lives and cultural pathologies of the white working class in the Midwest and South from which his family originated, his subsequent life and career do not lend themselves to easily to landing an ‘identity politics’ pitch to those people. His time at Yale Law School followed by the venture capital world around Silicon Valley certainly laid the foundations for a political career, but they also severely complicate any effort to present him now as an even half-authentic voice for the middle-American everyman. In adulthood, he has spent more time connecting with tech billionaires (to secure wealth and patronage), culture journalists (to promote his book), and latterly culture warriors of the online right (to carve out a base in the Republican Party) than the median voter.
It is true that Vance has advocated more for the defence of American industry against foreign competition, expressed more concern for the economic interests of Americans lower down the class scale, and been readier to attack large corporations, than has been usual for Republicans in recent years. But it is entirely unclear if this is tethered to a concrete policy programme that would meaningfully advance those ends or just rhetorical positioning without real substance. There is more reason to suppose he means business when it comes to socially conservative positions on abortion, gay rights, gender, divorce, and other issues since Republicans would be more united in pursuing that agenda. The recent backlash against his trollish statement on Fox News in 2021 that America is run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and…want to make the rest of the country miserable too”, is just the tip of the substantial iceberg, as he has spent years speaking freely on this and other themes in media forums that do not incentivise moderation.
The main upsides for Trump in a Vance pick lie on the other side of the election. For one thing, he is completely subservient to Trump and will do what he is told. If a moment like the attempted hijacking of the presidential election result certification on Jan 6th, 2021, arises again, Vance will be prepared to act outside the bounds of the Constitution in a way then VP Mike Pence ultimately was not. Secondarily, Vance is more eager than the alternatives would have been to secure the place of ‘Trumpism’ as the dominant ethos of the Republican Party whenever Trump himself has left the scene. In short, Vance was a pick intended to reliably shore up Trump in office, and his legacy and power base if and when he exits it.
That being said, when Trump was sold on the Vance pick by advisers, he will have expected him to be a figure who provokes controversy, but not to become a figure of ridicule. His launch onto the larger stage has not gone terribly well, and it was almost immediately reported that Trump had buyer’s remorse at his selection. It is telling that when asked publicly about his choice, Trump’s first response was not an uncompromising defence of Vance’s strengths but to play down whether a VP choice mattered much at all. Already, it seems, doubt has seeped in deep on the question of whether he is an asset or a liability to the campaign.
