JD Vance: “The problem isn’t that,” he said on the trail to the inauguration of Donald J. Trump

He promised to fight for every worker in the country. If you work hard, and play by the rules, you should be able to feed your family and send your children to school.

He said Democrats say it’s racist to do anything. I had Diet Mountain Dew both yesterday and today. I’m sure they’re going to call that racist, too.”

Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance has been an aggressive messenger for Donald Trump’s campaign vision for the future and is a constant fixture on the trail, doing interviews and taking questions from the press.

Republicans in Ohio were happy about the choice of a running mate. And Republican strategist Mark Weaver said Vance has appealed to moderates who may be still deciding.

“It is normal people who suffer when Kamala Harris refuses to do her job, and it is normal people who stand to benefit the most when we re-elect Donald J. Trump president of the United States,” he said in Philadelphia.

A Conversation With JD Vance: Parenting With Children Isn’t What They Think Happened to “Chickenless Cat Ladies”

With his rapid ascendance in politics, he has less experience delivering stump speeches, or handling the intense scrutiny on past and present statements.

As he was dealing with uproar over old comments he made deriding Democrats in charge as quote “childless cat ladies,” the prebuttal tour came as he was.

He said in an interview with Megyn Kelly that it wasn’t a criticism of people who don’t have children. “I explicitly said in my remarks despite the fact the media has lied about this that this is not about criticizing people who for various reasons didn’t have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

Republican leaders in Ohio didn’t believe the claims made about the Haitian migrants. The city’s mayor told news outlets that there were conspiracy theories about eating pets before Trump made the lies on the debate stage.

The American media completely ignored the cat meme until Donald Trump and I began discussing it. If I must create stories to get the American media to pay attention to the plight of the American people, that is what I will do.

“I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness,” Trump said on the debate stage. “And I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I don’t think he was speaking for me.”

Where Trump offered a “concept of a plan” for health care, Vance answered a question after a Raleigh, North Carolina campaign speech with more details of how Republicans would overhaul health insurance risk pools under the Affordable Care Act, a broadly unpopular proposal.

In addition to doing media interviews and giving speeches, as well as taking questions after every stop, Vance has also been a prolific speaker when it comes to messaging campaign goals.

But those Q and A sessions can turn contentious, with the crowd often booing questions from journalists as Vance takes the opportunity to paint himself as a pugilist for Trump, whether it be queries about interest rate cuts or questions about the campaign’s support of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who allegedly called himself a “Black Nazi” among other things on a porn forum more than a decade ago. (Robinson has denied the allegation.)

During his career as a combat correspondent in the Marine Corps, he regularly lectured reporters about the unfair coverage of him and frequently directed them to ask Harris questions.

Even in more casual campaign settings, Vance has struggled at times to connect. At one stop at a doughnut shop in Valdosta, Georgia, an employee was awkwardly put on the spot by the candidate — she then asked not to be filmed on camera. On another visit to a Pennsylvania sandwich shop last weekend, Vance was left standing outside in a parking lot after some initial confusion because staff at the shop were never given advance notice of his visit.

All of these things have contributed to Vance having the lowest favorability rating on this year’s presidential ballot — and one of the lowest of any VP pick in recent history.

Bringing JD Vance Out of the RNC: a Conversation with Tim Gibbs, a former Republican Party Chair in Shelby County, Ohio

Just a few days after delivering a populist speech at the RNC, he held his first solo campaign rally in his hometown.

There are two conflicting forces at work on the trail, one of which is the message Vance wants to get out and the other that actually sticks.

He said that it was a night of hope. “A celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again. It is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to protect the American experiment and keep our children and future generations out of it.

His acceptance speech in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention was heavy on biography and nodded towards a more polished take on Trump’s often dire rhetoric.

A farmer by profession, Gibbs wants to hear the candidates talk about immigration, trade, tariffs, biofuels and the Farm Bill rather than personal attacks.

“I predict Vance will spend ninety minutes affirming that the legacy core GOP principles of diplomacy, statesmanship, personal responsibility, and compassion have all but been extinguished from a once-serious party,” Gibbs said.

“As a local Democratic Chair who came to the party after spending twenty years in local GOP administration, my expectations for JD Vance on the debate stage could not be lower,” said Chris Gibbs, who now leads the Democratic Party in Shelby County in northwest Ohio.

Tim Ryan, the former congressman from the area, was defeated by Vance in the GOP primary in 2022 after Trump endorsed him.

“I don’t know if it’s who he really is or who he thinks he really is at this point,” Ryan said. “There’s a real uncomfortableness to him, and he’s also very thin-skinned and so he can fly off the handle a little bit if you hit him in the right spot.”

Ryan added that during the debate with Vance, Walz should be prepared to “fact-check him in real time”. CBS News, which is hosting the debate, said it will be up to the candidates to call out inaccurate statements rather than relying on its moderators.

Weaver, a consultant who has worked with many Republicans from local officials in Ohio to Ronald Reagan, said that Republicans are enthusiastic and many independent voters like his policy knowledge and eagerness to answer questions while campaigning.

Weaver said Vance has sharpened his communications skills through interviews and rallies over the last few years. And no matter what happens in November, Weaver said Vance’s future is “all blue sky – he’ll either be the Vice President and President of the Senate or a first term Senator with a higher profile than his peers elected in 2022.”