Vice President JD Vance? Donald Trump on Monday named the first-term Ohio Senator as his 2024 running mate, and it’s a curious choice: Mr. Vance isn’t from a swing state, and he won’t do much to broaden the MAGA coalition. He opposes free-market policies Mr. Trump will need for economic renewal. And would Mr. Vance be ready to lead the country if the worst happened?
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added that Mr. Vance will be focused on “the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota.”
The contrast with his last VP is impossible to miss. When he ran for President in 2016, many Republicans didn’t trust Mr. Trump, a political novice and ex-Democrat. One way Mr. Trump addressed this liability, on both politics and policy, was by selecting Mike Pence, an experienced Reaganite who’d spent 12 years in the House and four as Indiana Governor. Mr Pence helped Mr. Trump win the White House and then staff his Administration.
Mr Vance could hardly be more different. A Vice President must be ready to sit down at the big desk at a moment’s notice, and a scary reminder came when Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt by perhaps an inch. Mr Vance is intelligent and overcame a difficult upbringing that testifies to his work ethic. But the Senator is a 39-year-old who was sworn into his first public office in 2023. Remember how Republicans poked Barack Obama for seeking the Presidency after a mere two years in the Senate?
Short though it might be, Mr. Vance’s public record is defined by his political migration. He came to prominence in 2016 after publishing a best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which told a story of the Rust Belt that was more about cultural dysfunction than globalisation and economic dislocation.
“The Japanese are our friends now,” he recalls his grandfather telling him, as Kawasaki tied up with a company called Armco that had a steel mill in his Ohio hometown. Mr Vance narrates: “If companies like Armco were going to survive, they would have to retool. Kawasaki gave Armco a chance, and Middletown’s flagship company probably would not have survived without it.” This was the J.D. Vance who graduated from Yale Law, worked in venture capital, and compared Mr. Trump’s 2016 appeal to “cultural heroin.”
J.D. Vance the Ohio politician, however, opposes Nippon Steel’s recent offer to buy and invest in U.S. Steel. In December he signed a letter that urged Washington to block the deal and called Nippon “a company whose allegiances clearly lie with a foreign state.” But Japan is an ally and American workers need investment, foreign or domestic. Mr Vance visited a United Auto Workers picket line last year and proposed a tax credit of up to $7,500 for gas vehicles assembled in the U.S. He might claim he’s pro-worker, but he has turned pro-union.
The successful economic policy during Mr. Trump’s first term, including the 2017 tax cuts, was influenced by strong advisers and a Republican Congress. The risks to growth and prosperity are real if Mr. Trump’s second term is guided by Mr. Vance’s big-government Republicanism.
The foreign policy concerns are also significant. Mr Vance has opposed aid to Ukraine, while spreading crude calumnies about Volodymyr Zelensky’s government: “There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty. Why? So that one of Zelensky’s ministers can buy a bigger yacht?” Perhaps he will shed his isolationist impulses in office, but they’re worrisome.
Mr Vance’s selection was urged on Mr. Trump by his son, Don Jr., and seems like a play to pass the Trump mantle to a new generation in 2028. But Mr. Trump’s appeal hasn’t been heritable so far, and it will depend on a successful second term and Mr. Vance’s ability to broaden his adopted MAGA profile. His Saturday tweet blaming Democrats for the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump was at the very least bad judgment that belies Mr. Trump’s new desire to campaign on unity.
Mr Trump’s choice also suggests he’s so confident in his electoral prospects that he didn’t need a running mate to reach swing voters. Perhaps he’s right, though we suspect the White House is relieved he didn’t choose a more experienced and reassuring political figure.
The Wall Street Journal
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