Donald Trump’s fortunes in his effort to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination began to turn around in February 2023, when he visited the site of a train derailment in northeastern Ohio. After months of criticism for having hurt his party’s results in the midterm elections, the event gave Trump favorable headlines and offered a useful contrast with both President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), then running close to Trump in the presidential primary polls.
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Standing beside Trump in East Palestine was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who Trump had endorsed for the Republican nomination for Senate the previous April. Vance has been standing with Trump ever since — and will stand with Trump as the Republican Party vice-presidential nominee in November.
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It’s easy to see why Trump tapped Vance (a pick he announced Monday afternoon). Vance’s past disparagements of Trump are water under the bridge, as Vance’s posture to the former president has shifted to breathless enthusiasm. Perhaps more importantly, though, Vance has passed the central test Trump posed to his last vice-presidential pick, former Indiana governor Mike Pence: If asked, Vance has said that he would have tried to throw the 2020 election to Trump.
You will recall Trump demanding that Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, refuse to accept electoral votes submitted by states the president had lost the previous November. Pence refused, triggering the fury of Trump and the mob of rioters who stormed the Capitol that afternoon. During an ABC News interview in February, Vance was asked what he would have done, had he been Trump’s vice president.
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“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said. “That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.”
This is precisely what Trump said he wanted. It was also completely unwarranted, rooted in “problems” that were a post-hoc contrivance aimed at helping Trump retain power and dependent on an interpretation of the law that few observers believed held any credence.
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But Vance isn't particularly worried about any tension emerging from the judiciary's efforts to hold the executive branch in check. Speaking to a reporter from Vanity Fair in 2022, Vance suggested that a reelected Trump should simply do what he wanted, challenging the Supreme Court to force compliance.
“When the courts stop you,” he suggested, Trump should “stand before the country, and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.' ”
This was Andrew Jackson’s response to an 1834 court ruling that awarded possession of land in Georgia to a Native American tribe.
Vance has also expressed indifference about Pence's fate on Jan. 6. (An aside: The similarity of Vance's name to Pence's is going to lead to a lot of typos and some confusion.) In an interview with CNN in May, he shrugged at the idea that Pence was in any danger from the mob that day.
“Did a few people say some bad things? Sure,” Vance said. “But do we blame Donald Trump for every bad thing that’s ever been said by a participant in American democracy? I think that’s an absurd standard.”
You may recall Vance’s immediate response to the attempt to assassinate Trump over the weekend. It was the rhetoric of the Biden campaign, he said, that “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” (No motive for the shooting has been determined.)
There are myriad other ways in which Vance has echoed and supported Trump's rhetoric over the past two years, all of which we can expect to be elevated by the Biden campaign over the next few months. Earlier this month, for example, Vance endorsed Trump's promise to bring criminal charges against Joe Biden and his family.
Vance joins the Republican ticket slightly better known by Americans and Republicans than was Pence shortly before the 2016 announcement. Polling from YouGov in both years shows that Pence was unknown by about 6 in 10 Americans, while Vance is unknown by about half. Vance is also viewed very unfavorably by a fifth of Americans and very favorably by a quarter of Republicans.
Pence didn't inspire such a strong reaction, in part because his ascent to the ticket occurred in a very different context. He was the running mate to a relatively weak nominee, someone picked in large part because he could secure the support of religious conservatives. In 2024, Trump is hugely popular and powerful within the party. Vance demonstrated his fealty to Trump publicly — generating a strong response.
Pence was not selected this year, of course, because of his failure to acquiesce to Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
How Vance views the role of the vice president in counting electoral votes will not matter in January 2025, since the vice president then will (barring a not-impossible disruption) be Kamala Harris. But it could be important in January 2029, when it’s quite possible that Vance himself would both be vice president and his party’s nominee.
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.
Standing beside Trump in East Palestine was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who Trump had endorsed for the Republican nomination for Senate the previous April. Vance has been standing with Trump ever since — and will stand with Trump as the Republican Party vice-presidential nominee in November.
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It’s easy to see why Trump tapped Vance (a pick he announced Monday afternoon). Vance’s past disparagements of Trump are water under the bridge, as Vance’s posture to the former president has shifted to breathless enthusiasm. Perhaps more importantly, though, Vance has passed the central test Trump posed to his last vice-presidential pick, former Indiana governor Mike Pence: If asked, Vance has said that he would have tried to throw the 2020 election to Trump.
You will recall Trump demanding that Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, refuse to accept electoral votes submitted by states the president had lost the previous November. Pence refused, triggering the fury of Trump and the mob of rioters who stormed the Capitol that afternoon. During an ABC News interview in February, Vance was asked what he would have done, had he been Trump’s vice president.
🏛️
Follow Politics
“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said. “That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.”
This is precisely what Trump said he wanted. It was also completely unwarranted, rooted in “problems” that were a post-hoc contrivance aimed at helping Trump retain power and dependent on an interpretation of the law that few observers believed held any credence.
Advertisement
But Vance isn't particularly worried about any tension emerging from the judiciary's efforts to hold the executive branch in check. Speaking to a reporter from Vanity Fair in 2022, Vance suggested that a reelected Trump should simply do what he wanted, challenging the Supreme Court to force compliance.
“When the courts stop you,” he suggested, Trump should “stand before the country, and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.' ”
This was Andrew Jackson’s response to an 1834 court ruling that awarded possession of land in Georgia to a Native American tribe.
Vance has also expressed indifference about Pence's fate on Jan. 6. (An aside: The similarity of Vance's name to Pence's is going to lead to a lot of typos and some confusion.) In an interview with CNN in May, he shrugged at the idea that Pence was in any danger from the mob that day.
“Did a few people say some bad things? Sure,” Vance said. “But do we blame Donald Trump for every bad thing that’s ever been said by a participant in American democracy? I think that’s an absurd standard.”
You may recall Vance’s immediate response to the attempt to assassinate Trump over the weekend. It was the rhetoric of the Biden campaign, he said, that “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” (No motive for the shooting has been determined.)
There are myriad other ways in which Vance has echoed and supported Trump's rhetoric over the past two years, all of which we can expect to be elevated by the Biden campaign over the next few months. Earlier this month, for example, Vance endorsed Trump's promise to bring criminal charges against Joe Biden and his family.
Vance joins the Republican ticket slightly better known by Americans and Republicans than was Pence shortly before the 2016 announcement. Polling from YouGov in both years shows that Pence was unknown by about 6 in 10 Americans, while Vance is unknown by about half. Vance is also viewed very unfavorably by a fifth of Americans and very favorably by a quarter of Republicans.
Pence didn't inspire such a strong reaction, in part because his ascent to the ticket occurred in a very different context. He was the running mate to a relatively weak nominee, someone picked in large part because he could secure the support of religious conservatives. In 2024, Trump is hugely popular and powerful within the party. Vance demonstrated his fealty to Trump publicly — generating a strong response.
Pence was not selected this year, of course, because of his failure to acquiesce to Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
How Vance views the role of the vice president in counting electoral votes will not matter in January 2025, since the vice president then will (barring a not-impossible disruption) be Kamala Harris. But it could be important in January 2029, when it’s quite possible that Vance himself would both be vice president and his party’s nominee.
