Let’s start by noting that it’s a rare vice presidential pick that actually moves the needle all that much in a presidential race.
The most solid proof of this theory came in 1988, when the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, Lloyd Bentsen, seemed light years more qualified for the job of VP (and president-in-waiting) than GOP nominee Dan Quayle. Bentsen even landed one of the more decisive debate knockdowns of the television era: “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.”
To say Quayle wasn’t well-received by the general public is an understatement. But it didn’t matter — voters were choosing between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, not Quayle and Bentsen, and Bush won in a landslide even though Bentsen polled better than Quayle.
The simplest way most campaign strategists judge running mates comes down to two questions: Do they pass the basic “qualified” test for enough voters that they could be president, and will they do no harm to the presidential nominees’ chances? That last one is key.
For Mitt Romney in 2012, his pick of Paul Ryan made a lot of sense culturally and for governing purposes, but it also invited Democrats to attach Romney to Ryan’s plans to revamp Medicare, which became extraordinarily unpopular once Democratic ad-makers got done with it. Picking Ryan probably didn’t cost Romney the election, but it probably did cost him precious news cycles responding to Ryan’s Medicare plan instead of putting more pressure on the Democratic ticket.
That brings us back to the present. Of the three candidates on Donald Trump’s shortlist, which also included Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Vance is the one who presents the most question marks for the campaign — even if, culturally, he fit the Trump message best.
As a symbol of where Trump wants to take the party, Vance, perhaps, is the one true MAGA candidate of the three. Both Rubio and Burgum would have been as comfortable (if not more so) in the Romney-Bush days of the GOP as in this new populist-driven version of the party.
Don’t take my word for it — here’s Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, on the Vance pick: “I think he is the future of the party, and I think, because he does hold the same values as my father-in-law, a lot of people look to him down the line in the future. And I think if you ask Donald Trump, that was a very important trait that he was looking for in a running mate, and that is what we get.”
But Vance, who was elected to the Senate in 2022 in his first run for public office, is also the least experienced and the least vetted. Both Burgum and Rubio had run for president, running campaigns that provided opportunities for some public and private vetting of both their personal and professional lives. Yes, Vance was in a difficult, high-profile Senate race in 2022, but the level of scrutiny compared to a presidential campaign is night and day.
If you asked President Joe Biden’s campaign officials whom they wanted Trump to pick, it would have been unanimous: They wanted Vance. Team Biden is convinced all things “MAGA” are unpopular with swing voters, and the more they can connect Trump with the less popular parts of the MAGA agenda, the better they think their chances are.
And while all three finalists to be Trump’s running mate are onetime critics (Rubio called him a con man and Burgum told me he’d never do business with him), Vance’s criticisms of Trump in 2016 were quite harsh. The Biden folks are looking forward to turning those moments into effective social media memes that, at a minimum, can help rally the Democratic base or even raise money.
Privately, the Biden campaign is relieved the pick wasn’t Rubio, who they worried would be an asset in helping campaign more effectively with Latinos, in particular, in places like Arizona and Nevada. Both Rubio and Burgum would have been harder to pigeonhole as MAGA acolytes. The fact that The Wall Street Journal endorsed Burgum sort of tells you how un-MAGA he seemed to people on the right.
That’s what is so remarkable about this ticket — and what is going to be fascinating to watch on the right this year and beyond.
Trump and Vance share a passion for tariffs, or what some might call economic nationalism. They share skepticism about America’s leading the global world order. To put it another way, they don’t want America to be the world’s cop, whether that’s helping Ukraine in its war against Russia or protecting Taiwan from a future takeover by China. Some might call that more isolationist.
Perhaps like Bill Clinton did with his pick of Al Gore in 1992, a selection that was an unmistakable brush-off to the old liberal wing of the Democratic Party, Trump might be trying to use this running mate pick to put a stake in the heart of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP, continuing to redefine the Republican Party in his image.
It may take time before the Chamber of Commerce wing totally quits Trump, because, for now, many of its members think he would at least cut back on the regulatory state compared to Biden. I’m sure titans of business also believe they would eventually be able to persuade Trump to back off from his love of tariffs.
But the long-term severing of ties between the free-market business community and the GOP is going to have consequences. Will these people become Democrats? Not likely. But they may be more up for grabs down the road, whether that’s for regrouping to fight for their ideology inside the Republican Party or for finding someone to support on the Democratic side or even an independent or third-party idea along the lines of what No Labels considered putting forward this year.
The pick of Vance also signals something else about where Trump’s head is at about this race: He’s enormously confident of victory right now.
In some ways, his near-death experience has only strengthened his confidence. Unlike some members of his campaign team, he’s not worried about any campaign downsides with Vance, because if he thought he needed help to win, he wouldn’t have picked Vance.
There’s also the fact that he doesn’t plan to use his potential vice president the same way he used Mike Pence in 2016 and 2017. Eight years ago, Pence had better relations than Trump with key leaders of the GOP. That’s no longer the case, so instead, Trump was looking for more of a “mini-me” — someone who could explain his populism as well as (or perhaps better than) he can.
In fact, that may be what Trump likes the most about Vance — that he provides intellectual cover for what can sometimes seem like contradictory beliefs filling Trump’s populist-heavy convention platform.
Vance is also a fighter and a willing bulldog, and there was a time when willingness to be the campaign attack dog was job No. 1 for a running mate. This is also an asset Trump believes Vance brings. He’s willing to say some of the quiet parts out loud, like he did over the weekend, when he was more overtly political than many other political leaders in trying to blame Biden for the attack on Trump.
To that point, the Vance pick also signals the campaign’s “can’t we all get along” pause is over. Vance is a pugilist like Trump, and the Biden campaign sees the Vance pick almost as a permission slip to go back into campaign mode now.
But the truly far-reaching impact of the Vance pick may not be on this campaign. It’s what Vance’s elevation means for where the GOP is headed that’s quite extraordinary.
If the Trump-Vance ticket is successful this November, it could mean the Bush-Romney-Cheney wing of the GOP is in the wilderness not just for another four years, but for a generation.
