It’s Trump-Vance 2024

In the end, it almost seemed anticlimactic. J.D. Vance, the first-term U.S. senator from Ohio will be Donald Trump’s running mate. Vance does not put states in play like other possible nominees. There are too few people who are J.D. Vance fans who were not going to vote for Donald Trump. But Vance puts Trump’s legacy in play. He has been the most buzzed-about potential pick over the past two weeks. By the start of the Republican National Convention, he seemed inevitable.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin would have put suburbs and business owners in play. He is a comfortable, steady hand. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida would have been a draw with Hispanic voters, though there were always constitutional issues about a presidential and vice presidential candidate from the same state. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina could have been more persuasive with black male voters who are flirting with Trump.

Blue-collar voters in Appalachia, the target for a candidacy like Vance, are already in Trump’s camp. Vance wrote Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, a New York Times bestseller about his upbringing in Appalachia. He has long lamented how free trade and the tech revolution have left behind working-class whites, decimated towns, and led to addiction, the collapse of families, and the loss of ways of life. Vance, a lawyer, worked under Peter Thiel as a venture capitalist and did well for himself. Vance is also a Marine who served in combat. It has been some time since either party has advanced a veteran that close to the presidency.

Vance had been a Democrat and a staunch Trump critic. A number of his criticisms of the former president and attacks have already resurfaced. They will no doubt get more amplified in the coming days. Vance, having once been adamantly against Trump, shifted over time, as many did. Running in Ohio for the Senate in 2022, Vance has taken on a vocal role in shifting the Republican Party toward a populist and working-class coalition. He has put his own take on “America First” and aligned himself with Donald Trump.

Ukraine is an object of scorn for Vance. He believes the United States should not help the nation against Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He is a major advocate for using tariffs to shape trade and has become a strong critic of free trade. He has also been a social iconoclast fighting against woke ideology. Vance is strongly against open borders and loose immigration policy. He claims to be personally for traditional marriage but has opposed legislation to get rid of same-sex marriage. He claims to be strongly pro-life but has come out in support of access to the abortion pill and state-level abortion policies instead of a federal 15-week ban.

Where Youngkin, Rubio, or Scott would have given Trump voters in swing states, Vance gives Trump intellectual firepower for his America First ideas and legacy with Vance’s youth. Vance is 39 years old. Trump is term-limited. Vance could run for the presidency and then serve up to eight additional years securing Trump’s revamping of the Republican Party.

Traditional, old-school Republicans are not big Vance boosters. He is less free market and, as a former Democrat, more in favor of government regulation. He also comes with vast connections in Silicon Valley—a story unto itself. But Vance will be Trump’s No. 2. That gives him power. Frankly, Vance is not just the start of Trump’s legacy-building project. He could be viewed as the final piece of the Pat Buchanan legacy project.

Buchanan, who ran against George H.W. Bush in 1992, championed working-class, families and restrictionist trade policies. Those policy preferences have been embraced by Trump and Vance supporters. This week in Milwaukee, the Republican Party will pass the torch from the Reaganites to the Buchananites in the form of the Trump-Vance ticket. But that also means a Buchananism without much of Buchanan’s cultural agenda on social issues. We are about to find out how that works.