A few days ago J.D. Vance said that the ascension of Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket was a “sucker punch,” defined as “an unexpected blow or punch” or “a punch coming out of nowhere.” Intriguing he would have used that terminology because Kamala Harris on the top of the Democratic ticket has always been a distinct possibility and none other than the Republicans have been saying that for years. Did we just imagine people like Kellyanne Conway saying, “A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris,” with the presumption being that Joe would just fall in his traces one day?
In any event, as Rick Wilson noted when Joe Biden stepped down, Team Trump had made zero contingentcy plans for Harris on the ticket. Zero Plan B. Team Trump was geared to beat Biden, had everything calibrated for that scenario and since he stepped down ten days ago, the Trump campaign has been like a ship lost at sea.
As you see from the figures above, Trump is losing ground. He can’t afford to continue this way. He needs to get a grip and get it now. And that won’t be easy because he has nothing of substance to offer. Laura Ingraham interviewed Trump two nights ago and asked, “What would you say to Black women who are thinking of voting for Harris?” Trump’s reply was, “You won’t have jobs and your husbands won’t have jobs,” (due to people pouring over the border.) It’s fear and paranoia. That’s all Trump has ever stood for and it’s not working right now. People are fed up with him and a great deal of the enthusiasm that Harris is generating now is that people are tired of Trump and they lost faith in Joe, due to his age. They want something new, a new direction forward, a new energy, and Kamala Harris represents that.
So that leads us to Trump’s catastrophic choice of a vice president and the question, “How much of what’s happening polls-wise is Vance’s fault?” Vance is not helping anything and especially since the “sucker punch” of Kamala taking the reins, he’s actively hurting the ticket. Remember, he only got on the ticket because Junior suggested it to Dad and Dad only started taking Junior seriously because he’s got a social media following. We are not talking any kind of sane reasoning here, this is purely Trumpian. Daily Beast:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) cast doubt Sunday on J.D. Vance’s long-term viability as Donald Trump’s running mate, pondering whether the former president would dump the Ohio senator entirely.
“Donald Trump, I know him, and he’s probably sitting and watching the TV, and every day, it comes out Vance has done something more extreme, more weird, more erratic,” Schumer told CBS’ Face the Nation. “Vance seems to be more erratic and more extreme than President Trump. And I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, why did I pick this guy? The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats.”
He also speculated whether Trump would ultimately choose to drop Vance from the ticket ahead of Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline to join the ballot.
“Now the president has 10 days before the Ohio ballot is locked in,” Schumer said. “He has a choice: Does he keep Vance on the ticket, where he’s-he probably-he’s-he already has a whole lot of baggage, he’s probably going to be more baggage over the weeks because we’ll hear more things about him, or does he pick someone new? What’s his choice?”
Trump picked Vance nearly two weeks ago, fresh off the wave of positive press following the the July 13 assassination attempt and President Joe Biden’s flailing re-election campaign. However, since Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris joined the ticket, Vance has faced a barrage of criticisms and memes. Some have stemmed from his actual past remarks, like his comments about childless women. But there are false controversies too, including the claims that he had sexual relations with furniture.
Oftentimes, including in Schumer’s interview on Sunday, the criticism boils down to one word: “Weird.”
So here we get to the crux of the matter, which is whether Trump can admit that he did something wrong, and we know the answer to that. Never. But Trump needs to save his own ass. So it is possible that he’ll find some way to persuade J.D. that he needs to have some kind of an epiphany and decide that he’s not ready for prime time yet and the VP honor should go to Doug Burgum, most probably, because he’s such a fine example of what the Republican party is all about. It would have to be something like that.
It would be lame as hell, whatever happens. There is no good way to do this. But Trump either does it, and reinvents his campaign or he just fully commits that this is the way things are. He can’t change, Vance was a bad pick but so be it, the sucker punch came with no Plan B in place, so be that as well, and just go through the motions.
It’s going to be one or the other. And the clock is ticking. Keep an eye on this, because this is going to be explosive, when it happens. I think Trump and his campaign staff will try to right the ship. I could be wrong, but that’s my instinct right now, that Vance is toast and it is going to be ugly when the split happens.
Who knows? J.D. might even turn on Trump, figuring he’s done in politics anyway, and wouldn’t that be comical? Think of it, for the first time, ever, we could have a jilted vice president talking about what a complete loser the candidate is, not only for dumping him, but in general. So if that’s the case, and logically it would be, then maybe Trump will have to stick with Vance and if Vance wrecks things, hey, things weren’t in so great a shape to begin with, were they?
Either way, this could be wild.
Geez Chuck…more extreme than Trump? Has he been convicted of 34 felonies? Rape? Fraud? What exactly is more extreme than promising to end democracy? What’s more extreme than pissing on gold star families? What’s more extreme than ending NATO and letting Putin savage the children of Ukraine? What’s more extreme than ripping infants from their mother and keeping children in cages? What’s more extreme than raping a 13 year old girl? What’s more extreme than kissing dictators’ asses around the world? Damn Chuck. Maybe you need to step out of your comfort zone and get a phucking grip. Vance is Trump lite. Of course a fascist hypocrite is extreme, but let’s not forget WHO THE PHUCK INSTIGATED A VIOLENT ATTACK ON THE CAPITAL TO OVERTHROW OUR GODDAMN GOVERNMENT. You rich boys need to grow some phucking balls and tell the phucking truth Chuck. Just because you are admired in the temple doesn’t mean shit to me.
Excellent article Ursula!
First point: Daily Beast needs to get a better editor.. and right now I am listening to NABJ Conference, and Trump is such an idiot!
By any sane reasoning Trump would and should dump Vance. You did however hit on a key point is Trump having to admit not only to himself but to others that the choice of Vance was a mistake. To himself is a hateful thing to Donald Trump but even tacitly admitting to MAGA and everyone else he made a mistake? Flip a coin on that one. And quite possibly a “loaded” one that would come up with an ‘I’m Trump. All I do and have ever done is PERFECT. People will come to see how Vance was a great decision.’
I also think that an article I wrote recently might have more weight to it than I thought. I heard some pundit reference the same thing on the news either yesterday or before. There is some credible evidence that Trump is bleeding some white male support both among conservative college grads and the rank and file goober MAGA who are disdainful of higher education. Not a lot, but enough to have become concerned. For sure the fervor wasn’t quite as strong with while males in 2020 as it was in 2016. And other polling suggests more slippage since then, especially starting in 2023. Again, not a lot but the “wound” doesn’t seem to have close up. Perhaps Team Trump had internals that showed if anything the bleeding might be increasing some.
For all the bluster Trump knew going into the convention things would be close this fall. You’d better believe he watched Biden’s SOTU and though “Oh sh*t! And then, despite the debate watched Biden while NATO was in DC (and that unscheduled drop in at the AFL-CIO meeting, THEN that press conference and again thought “Oh Sh*t!
I wrote what I did and now others have commented on the same topic that believe it or not Trump began to think he needed to shore up his support with WHITE MALES. Journalists jumping on the Don Jr. recommending Vance angle was another stroke of the good luck Trump never deserves but so often gets. But if the reporting I saw before I wrote is as solid as it now seems to be then yes, Vance is needed to attract college educated white males with his Yale law degree and business background, and rank and file white male MAGAs with the Hillbilly Elegy image. The latter part at least might, incredible as it seems still be viable. I come from the type of place these goobers inhabit and lived in a similar one and know their type.
Here’s the other reason Trump might be hesitant to dump Vance. is Vance’s mentor and master/financier Peter Theil. Theil was a back of Trump then for a while not. However once again he is seriously behind Trump. With gobs of money. 75 million to Trump PACS and another 25 million to RFK to prop him up in the belief it would hurt Biden and Democrats and help Trump. I don’t know how much else Theil has kicked in or how much more he’ll invest (another 100 million? More?) but he can also gin up a ton more money from other Silicon Valley tech bros.
Trump NEEDS that money. A lot. Frankly, I think Theil believes that given his age and health which is visibly declining that Trump won’t last very long. Which means his boy Vance gets elevated to President and he OWNS Vance lock, stock and barrel. Vance is rich because Peter Theil made him that way, bailing him out when he floundered and propping him up just like Trump’s dad Fred did with him. Theil wants his own President he controls and can make very real threats to Trump. Not to mention what Theil knows about Trump from earlier times.
The question I think is whether Theil will let Trump replace Vance. If Trump doesn’t get elected Vance is done in politics and of no more use to Theil. He has placed his bet at the window and the race has started so there’s no getting his money (a lot, even to someone like Theil) back. If he decides to just as gamblers say “let it ride” then Vance will be on the GOP ticket whether Trump or anyone else likes it or not.
One of the unmentioned problems for Trump dumping Vance is that it puts all those GOPers (such as House Speaker Mike Johnson) on the defensive over their hypocrisy *when* they start boasting about the replacement. (Or they’ll turn it into a “both-sides” story: “If the Dems can replace their Presidential candidate, then we can replace our VP”–and the media will simply avoid reporting the fact that Pres Biden was not the formal candidate, acclaimed at the Democratic Convention unlike Vance who received all sorts of cheers after being named by Trump at the Republican Convention.)