J.D. Vance is counting on succeeding Donald Trump, but his chances are shrinking, The New York Times noted Friday. Other media outlets point to the U.S. vice president’s falling poll numbers and worsening odds with bookmakers.
Vance is the biggest loser of Tuesday’s election, the New York daily concluded. The vice president, who is trying to position himself as the president’s successor and has become an “avatar of the MAGA movement and more of a Trumpist than Trump himself,” will now have great difficulty distancing himself from this “tarnished brand,” the Times continued.
Other influential Republicans, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are trying to tactically break away from the president, whose policies they say sank their party in the election. DeSantis even called the defeat a “rejection of Washington Republicans.”
But Vance, who has grown very close to the Trump family, and especially to Donald Jr., closer than other prominent members of the administration such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, finds himself in an extremely difficult position, the paper assessed.
Newsweek reports that, according to an October poll, 44 percent of respondents view the vice president unfavorably. CNN, meanwhile, notes that Vance is on a downward slope: since taking office he has lost 18 percentage points in the polls, and as much as 30 points among independent voters, and he is the least popular Republican vice president at this stage of a term.
Even in the betting markets, which CNN cites, the vice president is clearly losing ground: his chances of winning the next presidential election, put at 33 percent in 2025, are now 22 percent.
The New York Times recalls that after the Republicans’ election defeat, the vice president posted on the platform X that the cause of the loss was the war with Iran. But Vance has not distanced himself from other disastrous Trump ideas, such as the trade war, nor has he addressed allegations of corruption against the Trump clan and politicians in his administration, the paper stressed.
Distancing himself from Trump will be all the harder because, on the one hand, he would risk the anger of the president and of the especially loyal part of his voter base, and on the other, it would be one political about-face too many. After all, Vance, who once compared Trump to Hitler, underwent a complete conversion to Trumpism, the Times recalls.
It also does not help the vice president that he is tied to the far-right barons of Silicon Valley. DeSantis has already taken a critical stance toward AI companies, and many other Republicans are ready to do the same. They are all taking into account that, for some politicians, merely accepting campaign donations from Elon Musk has proved toxic.
The Times sums up: Vance is intelligent and shrewd, and having gone from calling Trump “America’s Hitler” to serving as his deputy, he may be able to pull off another transformation. But that now looks less likely than it did just a week ago.
Even Brian Kilmeade, a commentator on the conservative, Trump-friendly Fox News, said on his program that “Vance is not as popular as he thinks he is.” He also said that “when you are as closely tied to Trump as Vance is, you have to ask yourself whether it is an advantage or a burden.”
“I think it may ultimately turn out to be a burden,” he added. (PAP)