This time, Trump’s vice president pick matters more than most

The conventional wisdom is that ordinarily, vice-presidential picks tend not to matter much and elections are ultimately decided by the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates at the top of the ticket. And indeed, Donald Trump’s current lead in the polls means that his choice of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) probably won’t make much difference come election day.

But if Trump wins, his vice president pick is likely to matter a lot. 

For starters, Trump will only be able to serve one term, which means that he’ll effectively be a lame duck by the 2026 mid-term elections, if not sooner. Barring a fallout between Trump and Vance (admittedly, a distinct possibility given the former president’s history of rocky relationships with White House staff and his last vice president), his number two will, over time, assume a much greater role in GOP politics.

Yes, it will still be Trump’s party. But in politics, the future is almost always more important than the past. Everyone will increasingly be looking to Vance as the likely GOP presidential nominee in 2028.

This shift in importance from the president to the vice president could well be amplified by the fact that Trump will be in his 80s for much of his second term. If he is less energetic than he was during his first term, he could lean more heavily on Vance (who will only be 40 on inauguration day) to help him carry out his duties. And if Trump begins to struggle with serious illness — the reality for many people his age — it could create a power vacuum that Vance would be well placed to fill.

Perhaps most importantly, the vice presidential choice creates a historic opportunity for the GOP to begin the process of moving beyond Trump and positioning itself to fuse the more popular aspects of Trumpism with some of the more traditional Republican policies that have, in the past, proved popular.

Trump’s fiery populist rhetoric has helped to bring millions of new working-class voters into the party. And if polls are to be believed, he will draw in larger shares of minority and younger voters in 2024 than any Republican presidential candidate has in recent memory. 

But beyond rhetoric, one reason he’s winning these voters is that many say they felt better about the American economy and America’s place in the world during Trump’s presidency than they do now under Biden’s.

And yet many of the policies that produced Trump’s success — from tax cuts and deregulation to increased defense spending — come from the traditional GOP playbook and were put in place by establishment Republicans, from former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Is Vance the man who can fuse Trumpworld and Ryanworld? Or is he a MAGA-devoted Republican who will reject such a fusion strategy? Wouldn’t a more establishment Republican, like Virginia Gov. Glenn Yougkin or North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, be better able to make this shift?

It’s true that Vance has aligned himself squarely with the Trump wing of the party, while others like Youngkin and Burgum have tried to maintain a foot in both camps. But the larger truth may be more complicated.

For starters, Vance has shown himself to be a political pragmatist. Before he was a big Trump booster, he was a severe Trump critic. He changed tack before embarking on his successful run for the Senate, understanding that he stood a much better chance of winning with Trump as an ally than an enemy. So he may well be willing to make practical choices in the name of greater electoral success down the road.

Vance also is smarter than your average politician. He is articulate and has a good grasp of policy. Better than his boss, his style can probably appeal to the suburban voters that Republicans need to win back if the party is going to succeed in the future.

So Vance may well be the man to take the GOP to the next level. After nearly six years as a Trump ally, his MAGA credentials are impeccable, giving him the credibility he needs to maintain the support of grassroots Republicans. 

At the same time, he may be smart and pragmatic enough to combine the most popular parts of Trumpism with the mainstream GOP economic and foreign policies that could help produce prosperity at home and peace abroad.

David Masci is the editor in chief of Discourse magazine at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a former senior research fellow and senior editor at the Pew Research Center.