JD Vance is ready to rumble: Will he get to debate Kamala?

In the lead-up to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, GOP nominee Donald Trump said he wanted to keep the vice presidential nomination under wraps as long as possible. The attempt on the former president’s life two days before the convention, at a western Pennsylvania rally, likely forced his hand.

On the day Trump was nominated to be the GOP nominee for a second, nonconsecutive White House term, July 15, he announced that Sen. James David “J.D.” Vance (R-OH) would be his running mate. Trump called Vance “the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States” on his Truth Social platform.

Vance is a former businessman, a bestselling author, and a relative political neophyte. That part of his biography superficially echoes Trump’s own story before he first ran for the Republican nomination in 2016.

Yet Vance’s story also diverges from Trump’s in important ways. His business was not real estate development and gambling but venture capital, which could give Republicans more sway with Silicon Valley donors.

Unlike Trump, Vance was born poor, to a mother who married several times. He eventually took his last name from his maternal grandparents, who raised him by default. Trump famously got draft deferments. Vance served in the Marines and in Iraq after the draft was no longer an issue.

He’s also 39, which is likely one reason for his selection. That is 39 years younger than Trump, 78, and 42 years younger than President Joe Biden, 81, who faces widespread doubts about his mental acuity. Vance’s relative youth highlights Biden’s octogenarian wobbles.

Vance was once a critic of Trump, going so far as to describe him as “America’s Hitler” in private correspondence made public. However, he came around during the Trump presidency and increasingly gravitated toward Trump’s more populist wing of the party.

Vance secured the nomination for the Ohio Senate seat in 2022 largely on the strength of Trump’s endorsement. He also convinced Trump to visit East Palestine, Ohio, after the famous train derailment there. Trump has called that a turning point in his long march to retake the White House.

The vice presidential nominee has historically been expected to play the role of attack dog. Some vice presidential picks, such as 1996 GOP nominee Bob Dole’s running mate Jack Kemp, proved to be not up to the job. In a debate, Vice President Al Gore congratulated Kemp for being one of the few nonracists in the Republican Party. Rather than rebut that smear, Kemp thanked Gore for the compliment. In contrast, Vance has shown he is ready to rumble.

For instance, after Trump’s shooting, Vance wrote on X, “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” He also pointed back to a failed effort by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) to remove Secret Service protections from convicted felons, calling him an “absolute scumbag” and calling on voters to “kick his ass out of Congress.”

Two days prior, the junior senator from Ohio hit the Biden administration with a vicious policy jab. He highlighted the fact that about two-thirds of audits initiated by a newly beefed-up IRS were on taxpayers with incomes below $200,000 per year. “Remember we were promised the new IRS agents wouldn’t go after the middle class,” Vance wrote. “Another Biden lie.”

Whether or not he’ll get the chance to debate Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, in the traditional vice presidential ruckus remains to be determined. The two campaigns are squabbling over what network should host it and when it will be held.

It would be a disservice to American democracy if that debate does not occur. Of the 45 men who have served as president, 15, fully one-third, were vice president first. Given the advanced age of both presidential nominees, there is a high likelihood that either Vance or Harris will become president sometime in the next four years. Voters deserve the opportunity to watch them clash and size them up as they weigh the heavy choice of which party to send to the White House.

Jeremy Lott is the author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency.