Who The Next VP Is Matters More Now Than Ever

Former President Donald Trump officially tapped Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his 2024 running mate on Monday. The Republican candidate’s decision was no doubt a strategic one made with the recent attempt on his life in mind.

Vice presidents have always played an important role in American history. The position as POTUS’ successor, however, has become far more significant in recent weeks after this year’s top two presidential candidates survived an attempted assassination and an attempted political coup.

The Saturday shot heard around the world wasn’t the first time Trump has faced a targeted attack meant to take him out of the race for the White House, and it almost certainly won’t be the last.

Democrats have spent the last eight years prepping for assassination by trying to smear, usurp, bankrupt, de-ballot, and jail their top political opponent. If they should finally succeed, Trump needs a trusted right hand who American voters can trust to handle the fallout without becoming controlled opposition.

While he’s wavered on key pro-life issues such as when he offered a full-fledged endorsement of the dangerous drug responsible for more than half of the nation’s abortions, Vance, unlike many Republicans, has signaled a willingness to take on the fight against deep state lawfare and Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice.

The 39-year-old may have only served a third of his first six-year Senate term, but he has garnered Trump’s trust as someone who is “strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.” The same simply couldn’t be said about any of the other potential picks on Trump’s VP shortlist.

No matter how hard she tries, Kamala Harris doesn’t seem to have the same youthful allure and vigor that Vance brings to the Republican ticket. Even though she is one of the least popular, least eloquent members of the Biden administration, she very well could be running the country sometime soon.

Until Biden’s disastrous performance in the first 2024 presidential debate in June, Harris spent most of her VP tenure on the sidelines. As Biden’s border czar, Harris failed to assuage Americans’ disdain for the unprecedented invasion of illegal border crossers plaguing their states. Pair that with her weird monologuing and historically low approval numbers, and it’s understandable why the Biden administration was not interested in letting her further afflict their flailing image.

Harris’ job as a benchwarmer, however, threatened to come to an end when Democrats, aided by the corporate media, pondered ousting and replacing their party’s presumed presidential candidate with someone who could at least make it off of a stage without assistance.

If Biden manages to stumble his way through this election and into a second term, it’s unlikely that his failing memory and physical weakness will carry him through another four years, which would guarantee Harris a chance behind the White House wheel. Suddenly, picking someone based on her sex and skin color doesn’t look so smart.

In light of recent events, Biden and Trump’s VP picks are carrying a much greater weight on their shoulders than ceremoniously showing up to White House events and rallies and potentially breaking the occasional tie vote in the Senate.

The Veep race may have seemed small and inconsequential to voters in the past, but the role Vance and Harris will play in the chaos-plagued 2024 election is guaranteed to have a sizeable impact on the future of the country.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.