My Spider-Man sense has been telling me all this time that Donald Trump wants to choose J.D. Vance as his running mate.
He saw the freshman senator as his own type of populist conservative, an eloquent voice who could cement Trumpism as the future of the Republican Party. And he had a powerful supporter in Donald Trump Jr.
But last weekend’s assassination attempt on President Trump gave me momentary doubts.
The former president had begun to say he needed help to get elected, and given the growing awareness that the man who had been shot might soon have to take over the presidency, I thought Trump might reconsider and nominate the much better known and more experienced Marco Rubio. But that was not the case.
Trump survived the shooting, but the political finger-pointing rage continues
Former President Donald Trump on Monday nominated Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate for the 2024 presidential election. (Getty Images)
Vance has some advantages: He served in Iraq and has military credentials that his rivals lack, and although he’s from Ohio, he speaks a Midwestern dialect.
If that translates into a win in neighboring Pennsylvania, the election is over. President Biden’s only path to reelection is to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Biden’s party leaders privately believe will be extremely difficult.
After writing “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance made some nasty comments about Trump in 2016, including likening him to Hitler, as did Rubio, and the former president has long since repaired his relationships with both men.
The downside for Vance is that most rank-and-file voters have never heard of him, calling into question his relative inexperience as someone only just elected to office in 2022.
Senator J.D. Vance, President Trump’s vice presidential nominee, arrives at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Vance has acknowledged he has been a scathing critic of Trump in the past and said he was pleased to have been wrong after meeting with the former president, and has shifted his positions to fall more in line with the MAGA line, particularly on the issue of abortion.
The Biden campaign was quick to attack Vance, saying, “He will do what Mike Pence did not do on January 6th: He will do everything in his power to support Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter what harm it may cause the American people.”
Republicans are running the MAGA ticket, but Democrats are already denigrating it as “extremist.”
During the 2022 campaign, Vance said he would vote to set a nationwide abortion ban at 15 weeks but allow for certain exceptions. Trump opposes a nationwide ban and leaves the Supreme Court’s wording up to individual states to decide.
Trump has been sending signals as he debates the merits of his running mate: He said North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is in trouble because he signed very strict abortion restrictions in his state, which has three electoral votes. Burgum is a little-known name and North Dakota has three electoral votes.
Former President Donald Trump (left) listens to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (right) speak during a nighttime watch party for the Nevada Republican Caucus in Las Vegas. (Ian Moll/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
While discussing Rubio, who spoke alongside Trump at a recent rally, the former president said the constitutional restriction barring two vice presidential nominees from the same state could be easily fixed but was still a complicated issue best avoided.
J.D. Vance’s response to the East Palestine derailment was the first memorable action by an Ohio senator.
The order of yesterday’s announcements was odd: Messrs. Rubio and Burgum said they had received calls, likely with Trump’s permission, that they were dropping out of the race, which resulted in Vance being eliminated.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) (left) and his wife, Usha Chirukuri Vance (right), were introduced in Milwaukee on the first day of the Republican National Convention on Monday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Trump likely knew this, because he identified Vance well before 4:30pm ET and was informed of his identity just 20 minutes before Trump spoke publicly.
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For political buffs, Vance is now a front-runner for the 2028 presidential election.
And I learned to trust my spider-sense again.
