The GOP’s bet with Vance

MILWAUKEE — There are two ways to look at former President Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate. One is that it is a sign of supreme confidence, perhaps overconfidence.

Vance is seen by many as a governing pick rather than someone who helps Trump gain additional voters. Delegates to the Republican National Convention told the Washington Examiner that Trump was securing his legacy with the 39-year-old understudy. 

The Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson made the provocative (to Trumpworld, at least) comparison to Mitt Romney teaming up with Paul Ryan in 2012. “Ryan was not chosen to appeal to a particular demographic group or geographic region; he simply was someone the candidate liked, who was young and energetic and could carry the torch into the future,” she wrote in the New York Times. “Vance, similarly, may not necessarily win Trump a new demographic. But he represents a chance for Trump’s worldview and posture to be formally handed down to the next generation of Republican Party leadership.”

To continue the comparison to Ryan, Vance represents his particular governing worldview with more coherence and consistency than the top of the ticket. A dozen years ago, Romney was viewed with suspicion by many Republicans. The former Massachusetts governor who would later become Utah senator adopted multiple political personas throughout his various runs for office before settling on gentle Never Trump conservative some years after his failed presidential run.

Trump is not particularly ideological. His skepticism of international trade deals, immigration, and foreign interventionism are all visceral rather than philosophical and subject to negotiation. Trump is always looking to get a better deal and believes he is uniquely qualified to secure one.

Vance comes to his beliefs through experience, too, growing up poor and writing about his life in the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, for which he was known before running for office. But he has arrived at detailed public policy positions that he can justify at a white-paper level. He has been more consistent on continued Ukraine aid — broadly speaking, he’s against it — than Trump, for example. The same could probably be said for Vance’s views on immigration compared to Trump’s.

At the most fundamental level, however, the choice of Vance signals that this is not the Republican Party of 2012 or Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. In his acceptance speech, Vance denounced NAFTA, admitting China to the World Trade Organization, and the Iraq War, cleverly hitting President Joe Biden for his support of each while noting he is much younger than the incumbent. There were no paeans to free trade or entitlement reform. Vance pointedly noted that America is not just an idea.

Some Republicans fear that Trump and Vance are moving the party not just beyond Romney and George W. Bush but beyond Ronald Reagan. The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reported he was hearing “alarm” from donors and “Reaganite conservative types.” Erick Erickson, the influential conservative radio talk show host, put it more succinctly: “Reaganites are passing the torch to the Buchananites.” 

It should be noted, however, that Trump has been in national politics for nine years and has been the titular head of the Republican Party for nearly all that time. He is now the Republican presidential nominee for the third straight election. Even Richard Nixon had an eight-year hiatus between his first and second nominations.

The realignment of working-class voters to the GOP is almost complete. This has accentuated the party’s disconnect between its elites and its base that only a handful of elected officials besides the former president have attempted to address. One of those few is Vance. The New Right believes it has the infrastructure to support the Trumps and Vances of the party that it lacked in 2016 and for much of Trump’s first term.

That’s one piece of why Vance is an expression of confidence from Trumpworld. But more fundamentally, choosing someone who will help you govern rather than win suggests a belief that the election is more or less in the bag. Biden has had a terrible few weeks. Republicans and Democrats alike are talking about a possible Trump landslide that would also usher in GOP majorities in Congress, pulling off the trifecta.

At the same time, Trump’s lead is down to 2.5 points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average. FiveThirtyEight’s model actually narrowly favors Biden to win. Trump’s lead in the battleground states that will determine the Electoral College majority has been consistent, but it is not insurmountable, at least not by historical standards.

Biden’s already fragile grip on the Democratic nomination loosened further while Republicans were meeting in Milwaukee. Few Democrats who are not on the campaign payroll or related to him by blood or marriage seem deeply invested in him, while much of the party is in open rebellion against him. He may be replaced as the nominee, which could totally reset the race in ways unfavorable to Trump.

Yet the addition of Vance to the ticket could also be looked at as a sign that Trump is taking nothing for granted. The campaign has its eyes squarely on the Rust Belt and is not relying solely on Trump’s emotional appeal to working-class voters to win them back. 

Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were crucial to Trump’s win in 2016. It is not an accident that the GOP convention was in Milwaukee. Biden won all three states in 2020, and his campaign says they are critical to his reelection. Trump is leading in all three now, however narrowly, but if Biden is replaced, a Rust Belt governor could be on the ticket — or, if Democrats get their wish for a complete makeover, could occupy both slots.

Trump could use the reinforcements. Many may roll their eyes at the prospect of an Ohioan helping much in Michigan. But Vance has made reaching struggling industrial and rural communities and trying to get policymakers to address their problems his life’s work. He can message their concerns with a subtlety and compassion often lacking in Trump’s grandiose and often self-aggrandizing oratory.

Either way, it is making a bet on which voters will decide the election. Republicans heard an alternative approach the night before Vance accepted the nomination when Nikki Haley spoke. Her speech was addressed to suburban women and Trump-ambivalent conservatives. But it is possible that, unlike 2020, this election will turn on economically distressed and usually disengaged voters. If so, maybe Vance is the man for the job.

W. James Antle III is executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.