NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
By the conventional wisdom of the chattering class, Donald Trump’s choice of JD Vance as vice president has been an unmitigated disaster that has the former president second-guessing his instincts. But the story on the campaign trail looks a little different, and the Republican Party may be forging a new funding base.
In conversations with voters in nine states over the past few weeks since the announcement, I found some surprises, including that Vance was not the first choice of almost any of the Republicans and independents I spoke to.
This, despite the fact that among Trump's hardcore supporters online, Vance was hugely popular and certainly the first choice. However, while he may not have been their favorite, right-leaning voters appear to be broadly supportive of him.
JD VANCE SHUT DOWN A CNN REPORTER WHEN ASKED ABOUT TRUMP'S COMMENTS ON KAMALA: 'HE'S A CHAMELEON'
Last weekend at the Carroll County Fair in Maryland, I heard the words “steady man” and “honorable man” from a couple of the men I spoke to. Among the men in particular, Vance has an understated personal style and qualities that they admire.
At Trump's rally this week in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Rich told me he wanted North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to get the nod, something I frankly heard more than I expected. “But I like Vance,” he told me, “I think he'd really be ready on Day 1.”
Outside, smoking a cigarette, I met a group of guys, including Joe, who said he liked both Vance and Trump for a similar reason: “My father always told me,” he drawled, “to run the country well, you need a businessman or a farmer,” so Vance’s venture capital background appeals to him.
And there's another way Vance could be shifting the traditional boundaries of the Republican Party. This week, he returned to Silicon Valley to host a fundraising event for Big Tech.
THE 'STRANGE' CAMPAIGN: THE STUNNING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARRIS' AND VANCE'S COVERAGE
This came just a day after former PayPal executive David Marcus, who is no relation to me, wrote an eloquent post on X saying he had “crossed the Rubicon” and was now supporting Donald Trump. In previous years, Marcus had raised a lot of money for Democrats.
This may not be a sea change yet, but there is significant political movement in Big Tech, with Elon Musk, David Sacks and others moving significantly closer to the Republican Party amid concerns about censorship and regulation.
Vance is by no means solely responsible for this shift, but of all the potential vice presidential candidates, he, as a former venture capitalist, was the one with the closest ties to big tech.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS REVIEWS
Time will tell what major impact, if any, Trump’s selection of Vance will have on the final results in November, but from my perspective on the ground and watching the money flow, reports that it was a disastrous mistake seem too premature to believe.
There was a sense among convention-goers in Milwaukee that Vance's selection showed too much confidence just days after the assassination attempt that some believed had profoundly shifted the race in Trump's favor.
But less than a week after Vance was elected, Biden dropped out, changing everything about the 2024 race, tightening some of the polls and creating a general sense that things are still very close.
Among the most revealing conversations I had with voters about Vance were in Toledo and Youngstown, in his home state of Ohio. Honestly, even his constituents knew more about his book Hillbilly Elegy and the hit movie that followed than they did about his policies.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
That can work both ways, even as the left tries to paint Vance as “weird” for his past remarks about cat-loving women and such. He still has time to define himself, even to the voters who have already sent him to Washington.
The voters I’m meeting are telling JD Vance, “There’s a chance.” A chance for him to win them over and position himself as the heir apparent to Trumpism. But, with months still to go and Harris’s own choice for vice president yet to be made, it’s too early to make proclamations or predictions about how Vance might do — and that includes the voices that say his pick is a disaster.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS
