Republicans who exuberantly celebrated unity at the Republican National Convention just last week in Wisconsin are finding fragmentation and second-guessers in their ranks after a new poll showed Vice Presidential pick J.D. Vance skidding down a steep ramp of public opinion.
Since 1980, no non-incumbent Vice Presidential candidate from either party has had a negative rating coming out of the convention, says data analyst Harry Enten, with the average VP contender emerging since 2000 with a plus-19 favorability rating.
Disrupting the trend, Vance, a former Trump-might-be-like-Hitler venture capitalist who changed to Trump-is-like-Lincoln VP candidate, emerged from the RNC a minus-6.
JD Vance is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party’s convention. He’s the first to have a net negative favorable rating.
Not surprising given how weak he ran in Ohio in 2022. Far worse than the average Ohio Republican. pic.twitter.com/hlZziePkKe
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) July 24, 2024
That stat coupled with Vance’s uninspiring stump speeches since joining the ticket have some Republicans thinking that Donald Trump Jr.‘s favorite pick — an acolyte of libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel and also reportedly the preferred the choice of the even richer Elon Musk — might not be the young bearded populist Trump really needs on the ticket after all.
[SEE: Why Trump’s new VP pick J.D. Vance has some Texas Republicans worried about the economy in the Houston Chronicle — and that was before the rise of Kamala Harris drastically altered the political calculus.]
Suddenly facing a female candidate, the Trump and a MAGA-flexing GOP that has struggled to secure support from suburban women are now seeing Vance’s Harrison Butker-esque comments about childless women resurfaced and amplified by Democrats.
Notable Democrats — perhaps most notably former Presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are especially targeting and amplifying an interview Vance did with Tucker Carlson when Carlson was still employed by Fox News.
What a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn’t hate women having freedoms. https://t.co/aa9UJaM8CU
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 23, 2024
Vance said the United States was “effectively run via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs” by “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives” and that these women — Kamala Harris specifically — have “no direct stake” in America. (Vance puts Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the category, too. Buttigieg has children.)
Clinton wrote sardonically of Vance and his Harrison Butker moment: “What a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn’t hate women having freedoms.”