🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
With the selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as Donald Trump's choice to be his vice presidential running mate, it is important to examine the remarkable turnaround of the man who once suggested Trump could be America's Adolf Hitler and that Trump was an "idiot."
The choice is significant for a number of reasons. The recent assassination attempt on Trump's life vividly shows just how quickly a vice president could be called into action. Moreover, at 78, Trump would surpass President Joe Biden as the oldest president ever elected. Finally, if Trump does win in November, he can only serve one term, making Vance his heir apparent and the favorite to be the Republican nominee in 2028. Vance is just 39 years old, giving him a potentially long and impactful political career in the national spotlight.
Given the importance of this selection, one wonders how Vance gained favor with Donald Trump given his previous harsh criticism of him. In many ways, the selection of Vance crystallizes the Republican Party's slow embrace of Trump and the MAGA movement. Trump was not the darling of the party in 2016 and had many detractors from within, throughout his presidency. Many "Never Trump" Republicans publicly excoriated the president and actively worked against him.
Rather than deny his criticisms of Trump, Vance flatly stated that he was wrong about him. Over the past few years, Vance has fully embraced Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. For instance, Vance was among those who showed up to Trump's Manhattan felony trial lambasting it as "corrupt," "partisan," and a "miscarriage of justice." Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts.
One key to Vance's selection may be found around his public statements that Trump's first selection of a vice president, Mike Pence, failed to do the right thing when it came to disputing electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Vance stated that had he been the vice president he would have unilaterally rejected electoral votes from multiple states because he believes that is the "legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020."
As awful of a day as Jan. 6 ended up being, had Mike Pence taken this route, it would have undoubtedly plunged the country into a constitutional crisis. Having studied presidential electors and the Electoral College for two decades, let me be abundantly clear: The vice president had no authority whatsoever to do what Vance suggested, nor what Donald Trump wanted Pence to do.
Regarding the vice president's role in the Electoral College process, the 12th amendment simply states they are to "open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted" and they are to do so in the presence of Congress. There is no inference that they are to use discretion regarding disputed electoral votes. The Constitution gives vice presidents a passive role. After the election of 1876, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act of 1887 in an effort to more clearly identify procedures to determine disputed electoral votes. The Act gave no authority to the vice president to judge those votes, but instead left it up to Congress.
In an effort to avoid another Jan. 6, Congress quickly took bipartisan action and passed the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022. Among other things, it increased the threshold to challenge electoral votes and made clear that the vice president's role was purely ceremonial. Even so, Vance's willingness to appease Trump by stating that Pence did not do what he should have was a clear sign to Trump that Vance would be willing to go to places that Pence would not.
Two years ago it was Trump's late endorsement of Vance that separated him from a crowded and competitive Ohio Republican Party field. Vance went on to defeat Democrat Tim Ryan in a hotly contested election in 2022. Notably, Vance underperformed relative to other statewide candidates in that election.
Approximately 400,000 Ohioans voted for Republicans Mike DeWine (governor) and Jon Husted (lieutenant governor) and then turned around and voted for Tim Ryan over Vance. This equates to around 10 percent of the electorate, which is incredibly high in this era of highly polarized politics. If the goal of Vance was to impress an audience of one (Donald Trump), he clearly succeeded in doing so. However, there is evidence that kissing Trump's ring may have its limitations at the ballot box.
The pivot of J.D. Vance from Trump critic to Trump advocate is one shared by many Republicans who have come around to supporting the former president despite having their reservations when he came onto the political scene. For Vance, his turnaround has led him to the presidential ticket.
Robert Alexander is a professor of political science at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Representation and the Electoral College, published by Oxford University Press.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
