It’s easy to understand what Trump sees in Vance. While Vance, 39, was a strong Trump critic when Trump was first elected — he even compared Trump to heroin and Adolf Hitler — he has more recently fashioned himself a MAGA true believer and loyal Trump ally. And more than that, he’s someone who understands Trump’s base better than probably any other big-name Republican; Vance quite literally wrote the book on the subject (“Hillbilly Elegy”).
But the pick is electorally risky.
While Vance won his 2022 campaign, that may owe largely to Ohio’s increasing red lean in the Trump era. In fact, it looked for a time as if Vance might somehow lose even in a state that Trump carried by eight points in 2016 and 2020. Polls of his campaign with then-Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) were tight until the very end.
Vance ultimately won by six points — a margin similar to Trump’s. But crucially, he underperformed every other statewide Republican on the ballot by a large margin. Ohio went strongly for Republicans; it did not go strongly for Vance.
Gov. Mike DeWine (R) won by 26 points; Attorney General Dave Yost (R) won by 20 points; Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) won by 19 points; and state Treasurer Robert Sprague (R) and Auditor Keith Faber (R) won by 18. The GOP’s Supreme Court nominees all won by double digits, too.
Some of those were incumbents with more of a built-in brand, unlike the first-time candidate Vance. And it’s possible that part of Vance’s underperformance owed to a relatively strong Democratic opponent in Ryan. Ryan was able to distance himself somewhat from a national Democratic Party that is increasingly unpopular in Ohio, opting for a more populist message.
But some of it was clearly reluctance for voters to go for Vance. Late polling from Marist College and Siena College showed more voters disliked Vance than liked him. Independents disliked him by 26 points (23 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable) in the Marist poll and 22 points (28-50) in the Siena poll. Women also disliked him by double digits.
You might look at all that and think, given Vance’s ultimate winning margin, that the polls were simply off.
But what the exit polls suggest is something else: that late-deciding voters broke for him. Indeed, the race was neck and neck among those who said they had decided on their vote before the final week. But the late deciders broke strongly for Vance.
That, combined with how well Republicans did in the state, suggests partisanship eventually carried him across the line — that it wasn’t an affirmation of his campaign.
None of which means Vance will be a liability for Trump’s campaign. Vance was a novice candidate at the time, and perhaps he will play better nationally than he did in Ohio. The effect of vice-presidential nominees on voters’ choices is probably oversold as a factor, though it could matter more in an election between an 81-year-old and a 78-year-old.
But we’ve also seen repeatedly how voters can balk at the wrong kind of Republican; it wasn’t just in 2022 that this likely cost Republicans. And we’ve seen over and over again how much better more standard-issue Republicans can perform.
Whether out of a sense of confidence that he’ll win or a desire to have a MAGA-aligned second-in-command — or both — Trump decided to take that risk. But it is a risk.
