There’s a lot of regret inside the Republican Party right now about the selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as its vice presidential nominee.
Vance’s favorability numbers, even after his stage-managed rollout at the Republican National Convention, are not good. He has made headlines for his history of derisive comments about women who don’t have children, his connections to the unpopular Project 2025 platform put together by Trump supporters at the Heritage Foundation think tank, his praise of Sandy Hook truther Alex Jones, his endorsement of a race-obsessed far-right writer who believes that the U.S. government should be replaced by a monarchy, and his past support for making abortion illegal nationwide. It’s come up that he raised money for Jan. 6 rioters and promoted a book that claimed that Jan. 6 was a “hoax” and a “trap” created by federal agents to persecute Republicans. In one incident that nicely sums up almost all Vance’s problems at once, he said on a podcast in 2022 that there needed to be a federal law that could prohibit liberal Jewish megadonor George Soros from paying to fly Black women to California to receive abortions.
Ben Mathis-Lilley
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If those sound like dumb things to have done and said for someone who’s trying to get elected to national office, though, just wait until you get a load of what J.D. Vance’s running mate has done while running for president—or while serving in the presidency! This individual, a real-estate marketer named Donald Trump, has:
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OK—you get the point, which is that insofar as Vance is damaging the Donald Trump brand, it is only because he has spent the past three years trying to ingratiate himself to Trump by doing things that Trump would do. In a CNN appearance that went viral, polling analyst Harry Enten noted that Vance has a net favorability rating of –6, which is historically poor for a newly announced vice presidential nominee. Everyone had a good laugh, but Trump’s net favorability is –9, and that’s after a bump of goodwill that appears to be associated with the failed attack on his life. When he left office post–Jan. 6, it was –18.
Granted, Trump has strengths with voters that Vance does not. Many people find him entertaining, and even some of those who don’t care for his personality think that he would be an effective leader on economic and border-security issues.
Still, until recently, all Republicans had the option of selecting a presidential nominee who would have had an advantage with voters on those issues without carrying Trump’s baggage. That includes the Republicans who are now complaining (anonymously, of course) to reporters that Trump has elevated to the national ticket someone with a history of extreme, voter-alienating behavior regarding women, race, and conspiracy theories. The pot and the kettle, locked in heated battle again.
Source link : https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/will-trump-replace-jd-vance-weird-vice-president-republican-ticket.html
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Publish date : 2024-07-30 11:18:00
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