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JD Vance will introduce himself to the American public in a speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.
Don’t be surprised if he makes a good impression.
Vance has a good story about himself to tell, and he can tell it eloquently, as readers of his memoir, ”Hillbilly Elegy,” know. And that’s to say nothing of “those beautiful blue eyes” that Donald Trump reportedly found so captivating when he was choosing Vance to be his running mate.
Whether Vance can charm more Americans into voting for the Trump ticket in November is another matter.
Many Republican strategists hope that Vance, the Ohio senator known for his Trumpy brand of conservatism, can help rally voters in the industrial Midwest. It’s no coincidence that the campaign has scheduled his first joint appearance with Trump to take place on Saturday in Michigan, where Vance’s history of bashing free trade and speaking up for striking auto workers last fall will find friendly audiences.
But the available evidence suggests that Vance mainly appeals to constituencies that Trump already commands, like white working-class men. Even when Vance was winning his Senate seat back in 2022, he lost among women voters, according to exit polling, performing 10 points worse than both his Democratic opponent and the Republican governor seeking reelection on the same ballot.
Women in Ohio may have been reacting to Vance’s opposition to abortion rights or to his suggestion at a 2021 event that they should be more willing to stay in abusive marriages. Or maybe it was the time Vance told Tucker Carlson (then still on Fox News) that the country was being run by “childless cat ladies.”
Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
Regardless, it would seem that nationally, Vance has more potential to boost turnout among already sympathetic voters than to attract skeptical ones, which is what Marco Rubio might have done for Latinos or Nikki Haley for college-educated suburbanites had Trump picked either of them.
But if you support the Democrats and are taking comfort in that prediction, you might want to contemplate what could happen if Vance ends up in the White House. More than any vice president in recent memory, he could be in a position to influence his administration’s governing agenda and the future of America.
It’s all because of the unique circumstances of the election ― and the unique governing style of Trump.
The President Who Didn’t Like Governing
Among the many ironies about Trump, who wants so badly to be president again, is that he has so little interest in the daily work of governing.
He famously has no patience for policy detail and prefers advisers keep briefing memos to a single page. He likes the pomp of public appearances, and he certainly enjoys negotiating. But as many reporters have observed ― and I too heard repeatedly while researching my history of the Affordable Care Act debates ― it’s the determination to win, more than the urge to achieve things, that drives Trump.
That’s why Trump, in his first term, outsourced substantive work on policy whenever he could. Inside the White House, he leaned heavily on his advisers with experience at governing: figures like former chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and John Kelly, budget director Mick Mulvaney and, of course, Vice President Mike Pence. In Congress, Trump deferred to GOP leaders, especially former House Speaker Paul Ryan.
In the end, Trump wasn’t able to accomplish much in the way of lasting legislation, aside from his 2017 tax cut. And while Trump obviously had a more lasting impact with his judicial nominations, including the three justices he put on the Supreme Court, he frequently failed at issuing regulations and had only partial success at redirecting foreign policy.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, and there’s no single or agreed-upon explanation for why Trump didn’t fare better. But you can make a good case that a big factor was the mismatch between Trump’s instincts — a nontraditional, ill-defined mix of nativism, isolationism, populism and authoritarianism — and the priorities of his advisers and allies, most of whom came from the Republican establishment.
He too can supply policy knowledge, just as Trump’s first-term advisers and allies did. And like those former advisers, Vance is generally a reliable conservative — the kind who once signed the famous “no new taxes” pledge and who gets perfect ratings from right-wing groups like Americans for Prosperity.
But Vance breaks with old-fashioned, business-oriented GOP orthodoxy in ways that match Trump’s own apostasies almost perfectly. Whether it’s the nativism (Vance is a hero to anti-immigration groups), the isolationism (Vance has led the fight against support for Ukraine), the populism (Vance worked with Elizabeth Warren on anti-banking legislation) or the authoritarianism (Vance said he would have backed Trump’s effort to recognize Trump’s false electors in 2020).
Vance would still have to vie for influence, as any member of Trump’s administration would. But he has already proven himself to be unusually adept at ingratiating himself with Trump and, no less importantly, with Trump’s family. (He’s become especially close with Donald Trump Jr., according to multiple accounts.)
Vance can also draw on outside support for lobbying and information, which are two crucial weapons in White House power struggles.
One of those sources could be industry titans who, as HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias has chronicled, have been promoting Vance ever since he went to work for Silicon Valley financier and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel more than a decade ago. Another could be the network of conservative intellectuals who are part of the “New Right” and helped put together Project 2025, a set of principles and proposals designed to give a second-term Trump precisely the sort of policy roadmap he didn’t have in 2017.
A Lame-Duck Presidency, An Heir Apparent
But Vance’s biggest asset inside the White House could be his position as Trump’s heir apparent. Unless Trump figures out how to suspend the constitution, Vance is likely to run for the presidency in 2028. He’d have strong odds of winning the nomination and, inevitably, a pretty good shot in the general election too.
The timing is highly unusual. Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden weren’t assumed to be four years away from their own serious shot at the presidency when they joined their tickets. Neither was Kamala Harris, even if conservative conspiracy theorists thought so (and even if she actually could end up the nominee this November if Biden decides at the last minute to step aside).
With the prospect of Vance becoming president so real and so immediate, at least in political time, other Trump officials would have more reason to curry his favor and less incentive to challenge him. It’s human nature: You’re going to think twice about marginalizing somebody who could have even more power in just four years, especially if that power includes the ability to decide whether you still have a job.
None of this is guaranteed, even if Trump wins. Even as a vice president and likely 2028 GOP front-runner, Vance could still fall out of favor by crossing Trump himself, as has been known to happen in Trump’s chaotic world.
Vance could also fail at trying to push an agenda. Turning ideas into policies requires skills like understanding how to coordinate with congressional committees or knowing how to navigate the rules of the federal bureaucracy, which even some of the most gifted politicians take decades to develop. Vance has spent less than two years in elected office.
Still, the ability to manipulate the levers of a democratic government matters a lot less if the focus of your efforts is actually undermining democratic government — say, by ignoring the Supreme Court or firing agency officials en masse. Or maybe just contesting legitimate election results.
Vance has advocated all of those steps, which, by the way, could help him stay in office — and wield power — long after Trump is gone. Wednesday night’s speech could be a glimpse of the future in more ways than one.