JD Vance’s appearance has only one audience: Trump, says the former debate opponent

Ohio’s freshman U.S. Sen. JD Vance will make his debate debut Tuesday night alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The former venture capitalist and author has had his fair share of missteps and stumbles since former President Donald Trump selected him as his running mate for the Republican nomination.

In less than two years in the Senate, he has become a well-known political figure in Ohio. But only one Democrat in the country has had the experience of debating Vance on stage.

That’s Tim Ryan, the former congressman from the Youngstown area whom Vance defeated on Trump’s support after winning a seven-person Republican primary in 2022.

“I think you’re going to see someone very aggressively trying to portray the Harris-Walz ticket as extremely extreme and completely out of touch. They will be blamed for everything and the world will end if they get elected,” Ryan said of Vance on the debate stage. “He’s going to hit so hard because he only has one audience, and that’s Donald Trump.”

Vance’s transition from Trump critic to cheerleader is well-documented, but his transition could still come up in the debate.

Ryan said some of Vance’s other controversial statements are also likely to surface, such as the false and racist rumors he repeated about legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield and his negative comments about childless women.

The debate will be an opportunity for both Vance and his Democratic opponent Walz to present their policy positions to the broader American public, since most people are less familiar with them than with their partners on the presidential ticket.

Vance in particular will have to overcome lower popularity ratings.

“I don’t know if it’s who he really is or who he really thinks he is at this point,” Ryan said. “It’s really uncomfortable for him, and he’s also very thin-skinned, so if you hit him in the right place he can get a little flustered.”

Ryan added that Walz should be prepared to “check him in real time” during the debate with Vance. CBS News, which is moderating the debate, said it was up to the candidates to make inaccurate statements rather than relying on the moderators.

Appeal to moderates

Republicans in Ohio celebrated Vance’s election as Trump’s vice presidential running mate. And Republican strategist Mark Weaver said Vance has reached out to moderates who may still decide.

“Republicans are energized and many independents are impressed by his political expertise and his eagerness to deftly answer any press questions on the campaign trail,” Weaver, a consultant who has worked with a number of Republicans, told local officials in Ohio to former President Ronald Reagan.

Weaver said Vance has honed his communication skills in recent years through interviews and rallies. And no matter what happens in November, Weaver said, Vance’s future is “all blue sky – he will be either vice president and president of the Senate or a first-term senator with higher name recognition than his colleagues elected in 2022.”

But there are Republicans who are frustrated with Trump. At least two GOP county party chairs resigned after Trump’s election in 2020.

One of them walked all the way down the aisle.

“As a local Democratic chairman who came to the party after twenty years in local GOP government, my expectations for JD Vance on the debate stage could not be lower,” said Chris Gibbs, who now leads the Democratic Party in Shelby County in northwest Ohio .

Trump won this district in 2020 with 81% of the vote.

“I expect Vance will spend ninety minutes reaffirming that the old core Republican principles of diplomacy, statesmanship, personal responsibility and compassion have been all but wiped out of a once respectable party,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said as a farmer who manages both crops and livestock, he wants to hear both candidates talk about immigration, trade, tariffs, biofuels and the Farm Bill, rather than the personal attacks he expects Vance will launch at Walz .

Copyright 2024 The Statehouse News Bureau