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Some Republicans are reportedly starting to regret Donald Trump’s pick for a running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, after Vice President Kamala Harris’s sudden ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Trump chose Vance thinking he was running against President Joe Biden, who announced on Sunday that he was stepping aside as the Democratic nominee and endorsing Harris.
The former president believed he was on a glide path to victory in November before Biden’s dropping out shook up the race. Trump chose a running mate that would gin up his base, not appeal to possible swing voters or Republicans hesitant about supporting him.
One House Republican told Axios, “The road got a lot harder. He was the only pick that wasn’t the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that.”
Two of the final possible challengers to Vance to be the running mate included Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, both considered to have more crossover appeal.
Some more old-school establishment Republicans argued for former UN Ambassador and Trump primary challenger Nikki Haley or Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to strike more of a balance and create more of a moderate image.
Another House Republican told Axios that “on the whole,” Vance “doesn’t add much.”
“And now with Kamala at the top, the capacity to have expanded the map a little bit ... would have been much more beneficial,” they added.
CNN analyst Harry Enten found that Vance “is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party’s convention.”
“He’s the first to have a net negative favorable rating. Not surprising given how weak he ran in Ohio in 2022. Far worse than the average Ohio Republican,” he added on X.
Vance won in Ohio in 2022 by six points while Trump won the state by eight in 2020. He fared worse than every statewide Republican running in the state in 2022. For instance, he was 20 points behind Governor Mike DeWine.
The chair of the Ohio Republican Party, Alex Triantafilou, noted that Vance had a well-funded challenger in Democratic Representative Tim Ryan and that other Republicans had the advantage of being incumbents, according to Axios.
Harris’s polling previously led to Biden questioning before he dropped out if she could beat Trump. Last summer, NBC News found in a poll that she had the lowest approval rating of any vice president since the survey began.
Republicans hope that Vance’s background in rural Ohio will help Trump in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where Harris may fare worse than Biden possibly would have. Vance could also help the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, Bernie Moreno, who’s running against Sherrod Brown in a race that may decide who controls the Senate.
While Vance has been commended as an adept speaker and media performer for the Maga movement, Democrats think his conservative views on abortion and cutting rhetoric about women will push away swing voters, particularly with someone like Harris leading the charge against the Republicans.
When he ran for senate in 2022, Vance criticized those he called “childless cat ladies” on the left with no “stake” in the future of the country. He pointed to Harris as being one of them despite her having two stepchildren.
“I’ve always said President Trump has the best political instincts of anyone I’ve ever met. His instincts were right in picking JD Vance,” Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso told Axios.
The Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta wrote on X on July 22 that the “Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of J.D. Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.”
Appearing on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, Trump was asked if he was still “100 percent behind J.D. Vance” after Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic ticket.
“He’s fantastic, it wouldn’t have mattered, and I thought she was probably going to happen anyway because I knew there was a palace coup going on,” Trump said.
He added that Vance, a former venture capitalist, is “essentially for the worker.”
“He’s doing a great job and he’s been very well received,” Trump said.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told The Independent: “President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy.”
