MILWAUKEE (AP) — JD Vance is expected to help Donald Trump win the Midwest this fall.
But almost immediately after the Ohio senator was announced as Trump’s nominee for vice president on Monday, one thing became clear: Vance, a 39-year-old Republican who has not even served two years in Congress, is not well known to many in his party – not even in the swing states where Trump hopes he will succeed.
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra, when asked about Trump’s election just minutes after it was announced, bluntly replied: “We don’t know him.”
“If he’s from Ohio, he understands our state and the other battlegrounds in the north,” Hoekstra said at the Republican convention. “But we haven’t had a chance to assess him yet.”
Trump’s team now has less than four months to raise Vance’s profile in the states that will matter most in his rematch against Democratic President Joe Biden in the fall of 2020. Already, a number of political opponents – Democrats and Republicans – are working to fill the void by exploiting Vance’s inexperience in government, his nationalist views and his critical comments about Trump himself.
“I’m not sure he’s helping him on the campaign trail,” said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, suggesting that Vance might be better positioned to help Trump implement his agenda on Capitol Hill if given the chance. “He’s not even that well known in Ohio. … This is not a campaign election. It’s a political election, a government election.”
Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway, who served as Trump’s senior adviser in the White House, had encouraged Trump to choose a different running mate in the weeks before his announcement, privately believing that Florida Senator Marco Rubio or Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin would do more to help Trump win.
Vance, who quickly earned a reputation as a MAGA hawk in his tiny time on Capitol Hill, drew modest applause when he entered the packed congressional hall for the first time as Trump’s running mate on Monday. The Republican senator posed for selfies, shook hands and signed posters. Later in the evening, the crowd was even more excited when he greeted Trump – who entered the room with a bandage over his right ear, which was injured in Saturday’s assassination attempt – in his first public appearance.
Recent polls confirm the assumption that most voters do not know Vance.
According to a CNN poll conducted in overdue June, only 13 percent of registered voters said they had a positive opinion of Vance, while 20 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion. The majority said they had never heard of him or had no opinion of him.
Trump’s choice of vice president is arguably the most vital decision of his 2024 campaign. Vance is literally half the age of the 78-year-old Trump and has the least political experience on a shortlist that also included Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
Trump’s critics in both parties sensed his opportunity and quickly moved against him.
“Almost any other choice could have expanded their map, but Trump needed a candidate who looked like him, talked like him, and thought like him. He needed a candidate who acted submissive,” former New Hampshire Republican Party Chair Jennifer Horn wrote on X. “JD Vance was the least experienced, least qualified, most submissive, most psychopathic, and most obsequious candidate on the list.”
But Trump formed his own opinion based on other criteria.
Trump especially liked Vance’s appearance on television, where he has become a fixture in conservative media. The former president also liked Vance’s appearance, saying it reminded him of “a young Abraham Lincoln.”
Trump also hopes Vance can utilize his life story, from his childhood in Appalachia, to appeal to voters in the Midwest. Vance has experienced poverty and addiction first-hand in a way that is unusual among leading Republican politicians.
Vance had another advantage: his chemistry with Trump. The first-term senator has built a robust relationship with Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and leading MAGA figures during his recent rise in Republican politics.
Vance is an Ivy League-educated author, former Marine and businessman known for his aggressive questioning of Biden administration officials.
The Biden campaign held a conference call on Monday to condemn the president’s election, focusing on Biden’s confined record on abortion and the economy, as well as his support for Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Vance had previously stated that he would support a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also said he would not have voted to certify the 2020 election results, as former Vice President Mike Pence did despite Trump’s objections.
“I’ll take this matchup any day of the week, and twice on Sunday,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign. “Because while Trump and Vance have an agenda focused on themselves and their wealthy donor friends, President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting for the American people.”
One of Biden’s biggest advantages in his campaign against Vance may be Vance’s past comments about Trump.
Early in Trump’s political career, Vance called him a “total fraud,” a “moral disaster,” and “America’s Hitler.”
“If you go back and listen to what JD Vance said about Trump … he said some things about me, but look at what he said about Trump,” Biden said Monday in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who was also once considered a potential Trump running mate, called Vance a “big asset” on the ticket whose performance against Trump would ultimately help him appeal to swing voters.
“He’s also someone who can say, ‘You know what, I might not have voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but that’s why I’m fully behind him today,'” Ramaswamy said.
But right now, Vance, along with Trump, is a mystery to many voters and officials.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said Vance was one of the few vice presidential candidates he had “really not come into contact with yet.”
“I don’t know that much about him,” Kemp said.
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Bill Barrow and Jill Colvin in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
