Trump’s Heir Vance Cements Populism’s Hold on Republican Party
(Bloomberg) -- Senator JD Vance’s debut speech as the Republican vice presidential nominee was a fiery demonstration of the most powerful assets he offers Donald Trump’s campaign: a stridently populist economic message tailored for key swing states and a symbol of generational change.
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In his Wednesday address at the Republican National Convention, Vance pledged that he and Trump are done “catering to Wall Street” and will instead “commit to the working man.”
He lamented trade deals, which he said led to shuttered factories — pain points in the industrial battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And he decried challenges from soaring housing costs to the toll of fentanyl, depicting an America in which broad swaths of voters have been abandoned by Washington and Wall Street.
“America’s ruling class wrote the checks; communities like mine paid the price,” Vance told the crowd in Milwaukee just two days after Trump tapped him for the ticket.
In a speech that served as Vance’s introduction to voters, he strategically unspooled his biography, highlighting his relative youth compared to 81-year-old President Joe Biden, who faces a revolt from within his own party over concerns about his age.
Vance, 39, noted that he was in fourth grade when Biden supported Nafta, and a senior in high school when the president backed the invasion of Iraq.
Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans have long held a candle for the idea that Trumpism would rule the Republican party only so long as the candidate himself did. But Vance’s address – a full-throated embrace of populism and an America-first foreign policy that established him as the GOP’s heir apparent – all but snuffed out those hopes.
“For decades, that divide between the few, with their power and comfort in Washington, and the rest of us only widened,” Vance said. “From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.”
While Republicans have hammered Biden over the economy, data show strong job growth and inflation cooling. The administration has also pointed to numbers finding a decrease in the number of migrants crossing the border after Biden took executive action to curb asylum claims.
Vance’s telling of the history of free trade and US interventionist foreign policy sidesteps that those were once core tenets of the Republican Party’s vision for America.
‘Compelling Story’
Vance first arrived on the political class’s radar with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which depicted his poor rural upbringing. That personal story was central to his address on Wednesday.
“Despite the closing factories and the growing addiction in towns like mine, in my life, I had a guardian angel by my side,” Vance said of his grandmother. “She was an old woman who could barely walk but she was tough as nails.”
Connecting with voters over his biography will be key to his role in the campaign, where he’ll aim to seize on the frustration many Americans have expressed with Biden’s handling of the economy.
“I think he has a very compelling story and then it’s one of survivorship. You need that in a leader,” said Lisa Dyer, a delegate from Texas, before his speech.
Vance’s focus on the Midwest, and economic policy, punctuated his remarks. He criticized the prevalence of cheap Chinese imports and decried the loss of manufacturing jobs — a trend both Trump and Biden have sought to stem. He said Republicans are fighting for auto workers in Michigan, factory workers in Wisconsin and energy workers in Pennsylvania.
At one point, he jokingly urged calm from the delegates representing his home state of Ohio as they cheered him on. “We’ve got to win Michigan, too,” he said.
A Trump-Vance victory would usher in an economic agenda that aims to renew expiring tax cuts, slash regulations and hit other nations — including China, the world’s second largest economy — with tariffs. New levies threaten to wreak havoc on global trade and raise prices for US consumers.
Trump and Vance are also critical of the billions spent on aid for Ukraine, alarming US allies abroad. Trump has boasted that, if elected, he could bring an end to the war.
Still, Vance’s speech didn’t dwell heavily on the war in Ukraine – a notable area where Republicans have sharp intra-party differences. He also didn’t make abortion a focus, an issue where Trump is out of step with some evangelicals.
‘Man’s World’
Vance’s speech capped the third night of the convention, one which saw Trump enter the arena pumping his fist as “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” blared from the speakers.
Biden’s efforts to counterprogram the Republican convention on Wednesday were dashed when he tested positive for Covid-19, sidelining him from addressing a prominent Latino advocacy group in Nevada. The president’s illness risks intensifying Democratic concerns about his age and mental agility.
At the same time, Democrats have already moved quickly to define Vance, with Biden dismissing him as a “clone of Trump on the issues.”
Biden’s campaign on Wednesday dubbed Vance a “poster boy” for Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint being drafted by former advisers to Trump that would shake up the federal government and enact socially conservative policies.
Reinforcing the Message
Immediately following the convention, the Trump campaign intends to put Vance on the road for many events in battleground states, an official said.
Vance will face a tightrope act in those appearances. Trump is known to favor colleagues with what he calls “central casting” charisma and appearance – but also never wants their star to shine brighter than his.
Trump picked Vance in part because of a strong lobbying effort by his son, Donald Trump Jr. For the son and his team of savvy, online-obsessed political strategists, Vance represents the next generation of Trump’s movement.
“He’s the one guy in that movement that’s a current politician that’s out there that actually really speaks to sort of the America First people,” Donald Trump Jr. said Tuesday at an event sponsored by Axios.
Trump aides and advisers also appreciate Vance’s ability to go on TV and defend the former president and mix it up with pundits – not to mention to debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“He will reinforce the message Donald Trump has been delivering,” said Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra.
--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron, Julie Fine and Stephanie Lai.
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