- A reporter for The Atlantic tweeted on Monday that President Trump's allies are “suspicious” of J.D. Vance.
- Four political scientists told BI there is good reason to regret this choice.
- They say Vance lacks broad appeal and speaking ability.
As The Atlantic's Tim Alberta tweeted, allies of former President Donald Trump say they are questioning the choice of Sen. J.D. Vance as Trump's running mate, especially now that Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to emerge as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Four political scientists told Business Insider that the Trump campaign has good reason to be worried.
According to an article by Alberta in The Atlantic, President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race has forced the Trump campaign to rethink its strategy.
Initially, Trump's allies said they were confident in an election plan designed to defeat Biden.
The Atlantic reported that the Trump campaign chose J.D. Vance not to use his early success to woo swing voters, but to widen the MAGA margin in a “landslide” election.
Thomas Gift, director of the Centre for American Politics at University College London (UCL), told BI that Trump's selection of Vance was “a confident decision – some might say overconfident”.
“Moving even harder to mobilize the MAGA base for a candidate who already has them in his hands never seemed like the best tactic,” he said.
Lack of crossover appeal
Angelia R. Wilson, author of The Politics of Hate and a professor of politics at the University of Manchester, agreed that Harris’ likely replacement for Biden exposes a new weakness in the Trump-Vance nominee.
She noted that Biden's lead over the Democratic nominees allows Trump and Vance to effectively criticize Biden's age and competency.
But with Harris as the nominee, they will need to focus on other issues.
Wilson suggested the Trump campaign would try to exploit divisions over race and gender, which he said would “lose the suburban soccer mom vote.”
Colin Talbot, emeritus professor of politics at the University of Manchester, told BI he believes Trump's slate of male candidates carries a significant risk of losing “the independent and centrist female vote”.
Recently, footage from 2021 resurfaced in which Vance is heard describing Harris as one of those “kid-free cat-loving women” who is “miserable” in life and has no stake in America's future because she doesn't have children.
(Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff.)
And in the ongoing debate over reproductive rights, Harris has been a vocal pro-abortion advocate, while Vance said in a 2022 podcast that he would like to see abortion made “illegal across the country.”
Talbott said Trump picked Vance at a time when he thought he had “certainly won” the election, but that it was now clear that he had made a “mistake” in not balancing the candidates ideologically and gender-wise.
Awkward rally performance
Another reason the Trump campaign's reported suspicions about Vance are not unjustified is his speaking ability, said Kevin Fahey, an associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham.
This election has shown how one bad performance can have a major impact on a candidate's reputation.
Vance's first solo campaign rally, held in Virginia on Monday, wasn't as egregious or widely watched as Biden's debate, but it still exposed potential weaknesses, Fahey told Business Insider.
After a Diet Mountain Dew joke fell flat, Vance stumbled in his speech and muttered nervous laughter — an awkward moment that Democrats quickly seized on.
Further missteps at the microphone could weaken Vance's star next to someone like Trump, who excels at pumping up rally-goers.
“He doesn't have the charisma of Donald Trump,” Fahey added.
Speaking skills aren't everything, Fahey also noted that Vance doesn't have a long legislative record to fall back on, nor does he have the track record to outdo Trump in Ohio.
Fahey said that other than his loyalty to Trump, “Vance has nothing to offer the Republican candidate.”
