Former President Donald Trump has selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to be his running mate in November, signaling a monumental shift in the direction of the Republican Party away from conservatism as we know it.
Vance rose to fame with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which documented his childhood, interwoven with commentary about the culture of rural Appalachia. Vance enlisted in the Marines after high school, graduated from the Ohio State University, and then earned a law degree from Yale University. He was elected to the Senate in 2022, and he has since made a name for himself as one of the leading national populists on Capitol Hill.
Vance would be different from any Republican vice president in recent memory for numerous reasons: He would be the youngest since Richard Nixon, the first to have facial hair since Charles Curtis, and the least conservative since Nelson Rockefeller.
Vance has advocated numerous progressive economic reforms that buck the conservative consensus around generally free market economics. He has praised Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, and expressed his view that it was the government’s responsibility to “build a competitive marketplace.” He also co-authored a populist banking bill with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who said he had been “terrific to work with.”
He supports hiking the minimum wage and criticized the “libertarians” who argue against it, saying that if the minimum wage were raised to $20 an hour, some jobs would be lost, but “the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages.” Vance views economics beyond a simple right-left divide and has said he is open to the politics of “the Bernie Bros,” but rejects the “center-right conservatives” and “center-left liberals.”
Vance has also taken dovish foreign policy stances that, furthermore, buck the post-World War II and post-Cold War Republican consensus. While he has remained strong in his support for Israel, the vice presidential nominee has said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” While Vance has stood fairly consistently for social conservatism, he was criticized by pro-lifers for recently changing his opinion to favor access to abortion pills.
With these positions in mind, it is clear that Vance would appeal to a decisively different group of voters than those who have made up the Republican Party for the past few decades. As Vance is fundamentally a progressive who holds socially conservative views, he may be able to appeal to the “non-woke” faction of the Democratic Party that has been disenfranchised by the left-wing establishment.
Another key part of Vance’s story is his changed attitude toward Trump, as he went from being “a Never Trump guy” to one of the former president’s strongest defenders. That could embolden those who have never voted for Trump to change their mind for the first time in 2024.
Vance’s progressive reshaping of the GOP could already be seen during the first day of the Republican National Convention. When he walked on the convention floor after being announced as Trump’s running mate, his entrance song was “America First” by Merle Haggard, which was written to protest the presidency of George W. Bush. Moreover, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien gave a speech about “big banks,” “corporatists,” and “big business” that traditionally would have, and should have, been booed by conservatives.
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Vance is on a mission to rebrand progressive economics as conservative, which will not bode well if his policy ideas are fully realized. While the media have already gone down the path of labeling Vance as an extremist, the risk with him is not that he would be too far to the Right but rather that he would be too far to the Left.
For now, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. His personal story is inspiring, he has a beautiful young family, and he is half the age of either major party presidential nominee.