Vance has taken on the role of Trump’s consoler-in-chief in his first weeks on the job, making two trips to regions struck by tragedy.

The vice president visited residents of Damascus, Virginia, last week to survey recovery efforts from last year’s Hurricane Helene. Vance then returned to the site of the East Palestine train derailment on Monday, where he called for a swift environmental cleanup.

“People have to be confident that they can build a business here, raise a family here. That is going to take a long-term commitment, and that is something people should expect,” said Vance, who represented Ohio in the Senate before his election as vice president.

The trips are getting Vance out early and often as he settles into his new role as vice president. Vance will reportedly go to Europe next week to attend a technology conference in France, followed by a trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

The travel also reprises the role Vance played on the campaign trail, where Trump doubled his footprint by trusting his running mate with solo rallies and events.

There had been some question as to how big Vance’s portfolio would be given the secondary role vice presidents play in every administration. But the trips suggest that Trump is not worried about putting Vance out front as he prepares to pass the political baton in four years.

“Every vice president is always looking for something to do because they’re so often shut out of the heavy lifting, especially as the administration is just taking off,” said Heath Brown, an associate professor at John Jay College and expert on presidential transitions.

“In this case, however, it seems that a whole lot of the vice president’s agenda is at the top of the White House’s agenda … that he’s out there talking about these things, I think is a reflection of the power he has in the White House,” Brown added.

Vance’s domestic trips are complementing rather than replacing Trump’s own travel. The president visited North Carolina last month to tour Helene damage and made another trip to Los Angeles as it battled raging wildfires.

But Republicans believe Vance adds value beyond the miles he can travel on Trump’s behalf. They consider him an effective surrogate who can articulate and even soften Trump’s message in both adversarial and friendly settings.

Most recently, Vance echoed Trump’s comments blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for the aircraft collision at Ronald Reagan airport while deflecting the criticism directed at the president.

“The president made it very clear that he wasn’t blaming anybody, but he was being very explicit about the fact that DEI policies have led our air traffic controllers to be short-staffed — that is a scandal,” Vance told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.

Vance is also regarded as putting an intellectual framework behind Trump’s populist policies and social conservatism. He delivered remarks at the annual March for Life on Trump’s behalf last month, imbuing his denunciations of “abortion on demand” with the claim that “radical individualism” was to blame for a decline in family values.

“JD Vance is able to put some intellectual heft into Trump policy, and that has been so valuable for Trump and for the MAGA movement,” said Republican strategist Brian Seitchik. “And that, to me, is really what JD Vance does so well. Yes, he’s a great defender of Trump. That is true. Mike Pence was for a time, a loyal defender of Trump, but Mike Pence could never speak to people or put this intellectual heft into Trump’s vision in a way that JD Vance does.”

Vance has served a role that Pence also took on in Trump’s first term. He has acted as an ambassador to Congress, relying on his two years in the Senate to lobby senators to vote for the president’s Cabinet nominees. He also helped negotiate a funding extension in December after Trump made last-minute demands that almost precipitated a government shutdown.

Ahead of Tuesday committee votes for two of Trump’s Cabinet nominees — Tulsi Gabbard for intelligence chief and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary — Vance used his bully pulpit to apply additional pressure on holdout senators.

“In their own way, both Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. represent parts of the new coalition in our party. To say they’re unwelcome in the cabinet is to insult those new voters. To reject their confirmation is to reject the idea that President Trump decides his cabinet,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Trump’s early reliance on Vance has reinforced the idea that he is the prohibitive favorite to succeed him on the Republican ticket in 2028, should Vance mount a run.

“Vance’s jockeying goes beyond being the president’s political helpmate. It’s about making the vice president the unquestioned successor to President Trump in 2028, provided Republicans don’t lose control of Congress in 2026,” said Republican strategist Dennis Lennox.

Still, Trump’s administration is full of past aspirants to the White House who could make another run in 2028, among them Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

“While it’s hard to see Vice President Vance not being the Republican nominee, vice presidents haven’t always had a clear succession to their party’s nomination. Look at Bush in 1988 or Gore in 2000. Both faced stiff challenges within their own party,” he continued. “He certainly doesn’t want to be a Dan Quayle, whose candidacies went nowhere in 1996 and 2000.”

Vance’s defense of the president comes at a challenging time. In two weeks, Trump has fired independent watchdogs at federal agencies, threatened a trade war, and begun the process of gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Rubio announced he is now running.

Each action has prompted Democratic blowback as the party attempts to regain its footing after its November election loss.

“There’s a lot of people that are anything other than comforted by the approach the administration is taking on a variety of issues,” said Brown, the presidential scholar. “And so, whether the vice president’s objective is to try to comfort people, I think that many people are feeling the exact opposite right now.”

Vance has used his public appearances to reinforce the White House’s message as it navigates Democratic criticism. Speaking in East Palestine, he championed Mexico’s initial steps to help curb illegal immigration and illicit drug trade. The steps came after Trump threatened 25% tariffs that he has now delayed for a month as the two sides negotiate further.

“For literally three days, I heard the far Left in this country say that these tariffs would make Americans lives’ worse off,” the vice president said. “And what actually happened is the Mexican government was so afraid of the tariffs that they actually are taking their border enforcement and their anti-cartel activity more seriously.”

Ultimately, Brown said it is still “too early to judge” Vance’s performance as Trump’s second-in-command. He suggested that the administration’s record over the next four years will help determine how the public perceives the vice president.

“I think part of the reason for that is because when we have incredible tragedies like [what] happened last week, they make you realize that you really have to take a long view on these things,” he said. “How this administration, including the vice president, are able to address not just the immediate impact but also provide the systemic solutions to many of these problems.”

Seitchik, the Republican strategist, echoed that sentiment, predicting that voters will wait to evaluate the success or failure of the new administration.

“Right now, Trump is taking a blowtorch to the federal government like he promised to do,” Seitchik said. “Certainly it is fast and furious, and Democrats and bureaucrats are screeching. I believe the American people are watching what is happening, taking stock, and will offer a judgment down the road on whether they are happy or unhappy with what Trump’s doing.”