On Tuesday afternoon in Milwaukee, Sen. JD Vance made his debut as Donald Trump’s running mate, and a small burst of applause erupted from the floor of the Republican National Convention.
Adapted to Vance’s towering stature, the Gettysburg Address was programmed into the teleprompters. Vance glanced out during his midday tour with a small smile on his face, his arms crossed over a navy suit and gold tie. He was an Ohio State man who was perilously close to flaunting Michigan colors. He looked out over an arena of empty seats that would soon be filled with members of the party he would one day head.
Vance will be addressing the convention on Wednesday in double capacities: as the party’s nominee for vice president and as its future leader in the Majority Electoral College.
Trump is planning for the long-term success of his political movement by choosing a first-term senator from the Midwest, who is 39 years old, over more seasoned Republicans with stronger party connections. According to Trump’s inner circle, the president is hoping that Vance will take over the party leadership once he leaves office, something he never really intended for Mike Pence, his former vice president.
An anonymous Trump associate told AWN, “It’s very clear that Trump wants someone who can carry the movement on.” This individual was referring to Vance’s appointment.
The anointing of Vance shouldn’t be surprising, but Trump kept quiet about his choice of torchbearer until he was ready to announce it. The previous president’s search for “a strong leader who will make a great president for eight years after his next four-year term concludes” has been a long-standing theme in Trump’s campaign, according to the campaign.
At 71 years of age next election season, how on earth could that be North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum? Consider Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who enjoys the support of campaign contributors but is nonetheless met with doubt from some of Trump’s most intense fans.
It had to have been Vance, who in his little time in the capital has personified the next wave of Trumpian populists and thugs.
According to Jack Posobiec, a conservative who has millions of online followers and is a huge fan of the former president, “What Trump’s doing here is showing that he wants the next generation of America first, the next generation of conservatives, the next generation of the party to really be one that has come up through his movement, through his wing of the party, as opposed to the more neo-conservative George Bush wing.”
Vance, who had previously identified himself as a “Never Trump guy,” rejoined the political arena as a Trump supporter with the assistance of the president’s eldest son. Early on, Donald Trump Jr. recognized the qualities that, in his opinion, made Vance deserving of a second chance, since he has always had a greater grasp of and rapport with his father’s most devoted fans than the majority of his relatives. His dramatic biography, which he portrayed in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy,” included being the son of a heroin addict and growing up with his grandparents in impoverished rust-belt Ohio. Vance then joined the Marines, attended Ohio State University and Yale Law School. Additionally, he possessed exceptional public speaking skills; his remarks struck a chord with middle-class Americans and served to alert the party leaders.
Vance was able to get Trump’s support in a heated primary for the vacant Ohio Senate seat thanks to their personal friendship. In 2022, Vance was victorious in both the primary and the general election.
Vance won over the populist movement’s intellectuals in Trump’s Senate campaign. Along with being a strong advocate for Trump on cable news, he has expressed the isolationist view that the United States should stay out of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The leaders of the MAGA movement gushed about Vance in a heavily covered Politico article that proclaimed him the New Right standard-bearer. “By the far the smartest and the deepest (senator) of any I’ve ever met,” conservative pundit Tucker Carlson said of Vance.
In March, Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Trump who went to prison earlier this month for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, told Politico, “I’m sure he’ll run for the presidency one day.” Bannon had hosted Vance on his far-right “War Room” podcast on occasion before his sentencing.
Even in the days leading up to Trump’s announcement, Bannon, Carlson, and Trump Jr. were influential in shaping his choice. In anticipation of their turns in the spotlight, Vance and Trump Jr. hugged on the convention stage Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday will see Trump Jr. introducing Vance; he claimed to have witnessed his conduct while serving in the Senate. In recent years, we’ve become friends. His energy, enthusiasm, and capacity to vigorously pursue the matter are commendable. In what is, should we say, unfriendly media terrain, I watch him perform so much better.
Vance, the Republican Party’s new vice presidential contender, swiftly became the party’s scapegoat within the convention hall.
“If Donald Trump feels confident and has that certainty for JD to carry that mantle, he is going to make sure that person is sincere in his belief in the MAGA movement, in the America First movement,” said Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, a millennial like Vance who has become a leading voice among the new generation of Republicans.
However, skeptics persist. According to a senior Republican official who spoke with AWN, “I don’t know what Vance brings to the ticket.” Meanwhile, another Republican strategist who works on House and Senate campaigns was angry that Vance may potentially win over people who are alienated by Trump.
The adviser wanted to know how JD could win over the voters of (Nikki) Haley.
In Trump’s party, Vance’s position as the next in line to the throne is not without its challenges.
Among the party’s current base, which includes some people who never voted before reality TV star Trump got involved in politics, no one has shown they can keep the coalition together like Trump has. Black voters, Latinos, and union households, who are considered to be Democratic Party core supporters, are being persuaded to contemplate switching parties by Trump, who is the only candidate to have succeeded in pleasing both Evangelical voters and pro-business Republicans.
Two years ago, in a strongly red Ohio, Vance narrowly won his Senate seat by 6 points. At the same time, he was 19 points behind Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of the state. Some of his opponents were quick to call this up during Trump’s search.
Like many others, Trump is notoriously ruthless when it comes to dealing with people he no longer views as politically valuable. Pence, Vance’s Republican predecessor, knows it better than anybody.
“Vance will be the front runner as long as (Trump) says so,” said a long-time confidante of the former president.
This November, if the Trump-Vance ticket loses the presidency, other Republicans will undoubtedly have their say in who they think should head the party next.
“While it doesn’t ensure it, it’s worth noting that Ronald Reagan served two terms in office and George Herbert Walker Bush followed in that regard,” stated Scott Walker, a former governor of Wisconsin who was also the party’s potential contender. “What happens after getting elected is the most important thing, but getting elected is the first and foremost.”
Regardless, anybody planning to stay in office after Trump’s second term in 2028 sees Vance as an urgent roadblock. Vance would probably have a significant advantage in Iowa, the customary first stop on the GOP presidential nomination calendar, according to Michelle Crawford, president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women. However, she did recognize that four years is a long time.
All sorts of things can happen, but Crawford is confident in the possibility of that happening. “And the Iowa delegation will also rally behind that if Trump believes in him.”
Several sources close to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign told AWN that they were holding out hope that Trump would choose Burgum as his running mate. They believed this would create a larger window of opportunity for a new Republican to take center stage in four years.
A DeSantis fundraiser quoted Vance as saying that the Florida governor faces an immediate danger from the “young peer leader of the Trump wing of the party” in relation to DeSantis’s political prospects.
Members in Trump’s inner circle, such as DeSantis, who questioned or failed to adequately support the previous president are now seen as unfit heirs.
According to Posobiec, the governor had a golden opportunity to become the heir if he so desired, as he stated to AWN. If he had backed Donald Trump and been his biggest supporter during this whole process, maybe he would have gotten the selection today. But we all know that he made up his mind.
Virginia conservative radio host John Fredericks, who has interviewed Trump multiple times, characterized Vance’s selection as a “12-year legacy pick” that “ended the presidential aspirations” of politicians like his home state governor Glenn Youngkin, who were planning to run for the party nomination after Trump dropped out.
As Fredericks informed AWN from the convention floor on Monday, “You can forget about Youngkin.”. “Trump dismissed them all. His legacy will be this. The truth is that he is aware of it. His term will end after four years. Therefore, he must find a successor to carry on his work. For that reason, he chose JD Vance.
