Vice President-elect J.D. Vance hasn’t been shy about changing his political allegiances when convenient.
Emerging from a tour in Iraq with the Marines to attend the Ohio State University and later Yale Law School, Vance burst into public as a bestselling author in 2016. The criticisms Vance initially leveled at Donald Trump back then are well-documented — “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance once wrote to a friend privately about the man elected president that year and is now heading back to the White House for a second, nonconsecutive term.
Once Trump was president the first time, Vance pivoted to embracing him politically with the zeal of a convert. Vance’s deft maneuvering put himself in Trump’s good graces and might be the key to why he was selected as his running mate. And it offers a hint at what role he is going to play in the coming administration.
Relying heavily on Trump’s support to capture the Senate seat in Ohio in 2022, Vance won a crowded Republican primary and then stormed to victory in the general election during a cycle stuffed with GOP losses. Two years later, the Trump-Vance partnership picked an electoral lock again, this time leading the GOP wave that included the 45th, and soon-to-be 47th, president winning the popular vote, the first Republican nominee to do so in 20 years.
Trump’s decision to choose Vance as his No. 2 at first looked like a pure play to his MAGA base rather than trying to attract new voters. There was never any doubt President Joe Biden, and then Vice President Kamala Harris, was going to lose Ohio.
There were rising stars such as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and steady hands such as Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) he could have tapped to reassure skeptics he was treading carefully for his second term. Instead, he went with the combative Vance and subsequently sent him on the attack in a way he is fond of doing himself.
Following the initial stumbles over well-timed opposition research — Vance’s infamous “childless cat ladies” moment didn’t happen this year, it was dredged up from an interview he did in 2021 — the Ohio senator found his footing and excelled in nearly every position he was put in. He barnstormed the Sunday talk shows and mixed it up with hostile and friendly hosts alike. The ability and willingness to walk into tough media environments stood in stark contrast to Harris and Vance’s Democratic counterpart, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who both tried to execute a below-the-media-radar campaign.
Vance’s ability to take on any challenge was on full display in October when he faced off with Walz in their vice presidential debate.
Vic Fingerhut, a Democratic political strategist, told the Washington Examiner he was impressed with Vance’s performance and shocked at how well he adjusted from acting as Trump’s attack dog to being a “reasonably cool customer.”
“I’ve been impressed by his abilities to play different roles,” Fingerhut said. “So I think he may give Trump the ability to decide what kind of role he wants Vance to play. Vance seems to have a certain degree of political versatility, which may enhance his role.”
What role the vice president plays in the administration of their boss is famously open-ended. The office was originally given to the presidential runner-up, splitting the very top of the executive branch in two. Since the Constitution’s 12th Amendment made the president and vice president a ticket, more often than not, the understudy got shunted to the side and was handed the unenviable tasks the commander in chief had no interest in tackling.
The job still remained a menial one, vice presidential scholar Joel Goldstein told the Washington Examiner.
From the founding until roughly the 1940s, the vice president sat in his seat as the president of the Senate and played “little, if any role in the executive branch,” Goldstein said.
Even when vice presidents started attending Cabinet meetings in President Warren Harding’s administration, the practice was controversial, Goldstein said. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, who worked under President Woodrow Wilson, refused to attend the meetings, arguing his presence for discussions among the executive branch leaders would be a violation of the separation of powers.
Hesitation to have vice presidents play a more forceful role in governance started to evaporate during the Carter and Reagan administrations. And in recent years, there has been an explicit choice to select running mates who have good working relationships with members of Congress to bridge the divide across town.
President Barack Obama relied on Vice President Joe Biden’s relationships with senators that he himself didn’t have time to build during his three years in the chamber.
Trump leaned on Vice President Mike Pence’s knowledge of Washington to help him navigate his first term as a political novice.
But now, Trump has been in politics longer than his right-hand man, and how he chooses to deploy Vance will likely change as often as the president’s moods. And Vance’s audition, going from sharp Trump critic to booster, along with his performance on the campaign trail, showed he might be one of the few people capable of handling that job.
Vance’s future role is as hazy as ever. He will be walking a fine line between serving at the pleasure of Trump while keeping an eye on 2028. He appears to be the philosophical and intellectual lodestar for the MAGA movement and, depending on how successful the next four years are, would be at the front of the line to replace the lame-duck Trump.
But he can’t step too far out of line, breaking with Trump on key issues he might have a fondness for that his boss does not. And if things go south for Republicans, and his plan is to run for the top job himself, he could find himself in a similar position Harris did this cycle, when voters tied her to the unpopular administration of President Joe Biden, during his single term.
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If history is any guide, Democrats are likely to perform well in the 2026 midterm elections, possibly setting up a tumultuous final two-year stretch that would require presidential candidate Vance trying to explain to voters how he will be his own man and not a warmed-over version of what they’ve had for the last four years.
The job of every vice president, Goldstein said, is to be a “generalist.” Each one might be given specific assignments, but the most important talent they have is to be a “high-level presidential adviser and operative at the direction of the president.”