Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a campaign Town Hall on Saturday, Oct 12, 2024, in Reading, Pa. (AP Photo/Laurence Kesterson)AP
LANCASTER, Pa. – Less than a month before voters returned Republican former President Donald Trump to the White House, hundreds of his supporters waited for hours outside the Lancaster County convention center for a town hall with their candidate.
They wore “Make America Great Again” hats and T-shirts featuring photos of Trump‘s defiant, blood-streaked face. Many said they’d be casting their third consecutive vote for Trump.
But the name alongside Trump’s, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, was new to their ballots. Trump picked Vance, a political newcomer made famous by a best-selling memoir, to be his running mate — and perhaps to carry the baton for his MAGA movement.
Despite polling that shows more Americans view Vance unfavorably than positively, the Trump faithful in the battleground state said they were impressed with Vance and regarded him as a likely heir when Trump’s second term ends.
“He’s open, he’s honest, he’s accurate and he doesn’t back down to the liberals,” said Jennie Herman of Ronks, Pennsylvania, who envisions Vance taking over the White House for eight years after the next Trump term is over. “I think that what he came from in his background proves to me that he’s a gentleman, and he’s what we need for America. And he’s honest, he has a lot of integrity.”
Rank-and-file GOP voters aren‘t the only ones who see Vance as Trump’s likely successor. Political experts see Vance as the “Make America Great Again” torch bearer of the future, and Trump’s own family has touted him as a future president.
Shortly after his father selected Vance as his running-mate, Donald Trump Jr., told Axios he believes there’d be a “very high chance” of Vance becoming president after Trump. The U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice.
Trump Jr. said Vance speaks to “the ‘America First’ people, and isn‘t like, sort of, ‘We’ll be right back to the establishment. Let’s go back to the neocon warmongering.” He stood alongside Vance at several appearances in the campaign’s final stretch.
“How great is JD?” Trump Jr. asked at a Nov. 1 North Carolina rally with Vance. “What I love most about JD is, now, for our movement, for America first, isn’t it nice to have a bench? Isn’t it nice to have people that’ll fight for you the way my father has fought for you?”
Past vice-presidents and vice-presidential candidates are often among their party’s top contenders for future presidential nominations. Fifteen past vice presidents have become president. Eight of them ascended to the office on the death of a president, four of whom were later elected president. President Joe Biden is the most recent ex-vice president to win the top job.
“I think a lot of them think that JD Vance is the future of the party,” Youngstown State University emeritus political science professor William Binning, a former Mahoning County GOP chairman, says of Republicans. “He’s an idea man, and he’s articulate. He’s young, he’s conservative, he’s gonna be the next president, and he’s gonna carry us on in the next decade or two.”
Running on a national ticket with Trump has required Vance to promote Trump’s views rather than his own, and subsume his own vision for the country to Trump’s. It’s also improved Vance’s nationwide name recognition, helped him meet more political donors, and showcased his speaking abilities.
“It would stand to reason that the sitting VP would start as the favorite in the 2028 presidential contest, and then it would be a question of how many other prominent Republicans decide to enter the race,” says Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the Sabato’s Crystal Ball politics newsletter.
Kondik cautioned that much could change during Trump’s next term but said the vice presidency can be “a good launching pad” to the presidential nomination.
In the recent past, even losing vice-presidential candidates have parlayed their runs into political prominence. Former Wisconsin GOP Congressman Paul Ryan became Speaker of the House after serving as Utah U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s running mate, and former Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became a high-profile Tea Partier after running for vice president on a ticket with former Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain.
Vance wasn’t seen as a safe vice-presidential pick for Trump. He hadn’t run for president before like the other top contenders, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. He also had far less experience in public office than the others, with less than two years of service as a U.S. senator. He was viewed as a running mate who could excite turnout among the MAGA faithful rather than someone who could convert doubters.
Raised in southwest Ohio’s Middletown, Vance describes himself as an unlikely success story. Bounced between different financially-strapped households while his mother fought opioid addiction, his life stabilized after he moved in with his foul-mouthed but good-hearted grandmother. From there, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, obtained degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, and launched a career in venture capital.
Vance first appeared on the national scene following the success of his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which chronicled his personal rise from poverty, family drug addiction and domestic violence. He used the book’s success to land writing gigs and frequent television bookings, which he used to criticize Trump as a demagogue who appealed to a strain of racism that existed among working-class white voters.
By the time he ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Cincinnati Republican Rob Portman’s 2023 retirement, Vance had reinvented himself as a public Trump supporter, saying he got the ex-president wrong. An endorsement from Trump helped Vance win a crowded GOP Senate primary and the general election. A connection forged with Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who contributed millions of dollars to elect Vance, propelled his campaign.
He was the first political newcomer elected to one of Ohio’s U.S. Senate seats in more than 50 years.
Vance didn’t pass any standalone legislation after joining the U.S. Senate, instead using the institution’s bully pulpit to excoriate Democratic President Joe Biden and extoll Trump.
During his Tuesday night victory speech, Trump described Vance as “a feisty guy” who “obliterate” opponents on television network.
“He’s turned out to be a good choice,” said Trump. “I took a little heat at the beginning, but he was, I knew the brain was a good one, about as good as it gets. And we love the family, and we’re going to have a great four years, and we’re gonna turn our country around. Make it something very special.”
In response to Vance’s relatively skimpy record in public office, Bowling Green State University political scientist Robert Alexander points out that Trump hadn’t held public office at all before voters elected him president in 2016.
Alexander also noted Trump’s ideological views “changed relatively quickly to suit the moment” over the years, as Vance’s have. Over time, Trump has shifted his views on abortion, immigration, Tik-Tok and cryptocurrency, among other issues.
Vance described himself as a “never-Trumper” in 2016, privately comparing Trump to Adolph Hitler. He says the success of Trump’s presidency transformed his views
As he sought to become Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, Vance went so far as to say that if he had been vice-president in 2020 instead of Mike Pence, he would have accommodated Trump’s request to reject electoral votes from several swing states that Biden won to keep Trump in the White House.
Alexander regards Trump’s selection of Vance as a way for him to “show the heir apparent for the MAGA movement.
“JD Vance has shown that he is using the same talking points that Donald Trump has, and can articulate Trumpism in a pithy way that sounds very digestible,” says Alexander.
Republicans heading into Lancaster’s convention center were sanguine at the prospect of a Vance presidency after Trump’s.
“I love Trump,” said Jeanne Becklund, of Maui, Hawaii, who was visiting her daughter in Lancaster. “Vance is definitely a guy to lead the Republican party into the future and make a difference.”
Chris Smith, of Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania, said he hopes Vance is the future of the Trump movement because he can articulate his views without some of the misunderstandings that stem from Trump’s freewheeling commentary. After four years in office as Trump’s deputy, Smith says Vance will have a solid track record to run on.
“He’s proof that the American Dream is still alive,” agreed Jim Cage, of Reinholds, Pennsylvania.