Truly support
independent journalism
Our mission is to provide unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds the powerful to account and exposes the truth.
Whether it’s $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us in offering journalism without agenda.
IWhen Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce that he had chosen Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate, right-wing sectors of the Republican Party praised Vance as a masterful choice who would serve as a bridge to the next generation of the populist MAGA movement.
But in the background, another group of people, much more unexpected, was also applauding: the Democrats.
According to sources within the Democratic National Committee, the Biden-Harris re-election campaign and outside groups supporting the Democratic ticket against Trump and Vance, the selection of the 38-year-old former venture capitalist is being greeted with jubilation and relief.
That’s because Trump’s other two candidates for the post, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, had positive qualities that could have shored up the former president’s known weaknesses. Vance, on the other hand, could end up being a big, ostentatious misstep.
Doug Burgum’s record as a two-term governor would have provided Republicans and political independents who were skeptical of Trump with a steady hand that could step in, should the worst happen to Trump. He might also have brought in a solid conservative caucus. good faith in the same vein as the man Trump competed against in his first two presidential campaigns, former Vice President Mike Pence.
A former Republican strategist who no longer works with GOP candidates described Trump’s election as shocking, especially after the attempted assassination of the former president.
They said, “You’re about to have your head turned around and two days later the guy you pick for the job of being alive in case you’re dead is the millennial freshman who has exactly one election and two years in the Senate under his belt. Normal people are going to think that’s idiotic.”
The former strategist added that Trump, thanks to a combination of sheer luck and better advisers, had run a relatively flawless campaign — up until the moment he picked Vance. Picking Vance, they said, was “a colossal and unnecessary screw-up” because it undermines Trump’s central thesis about why he should be returned to the White House: his judgment.
But the jubilation felt by anti-Trump forces after Vance became Trump’s running mate is not just about how the choice reflects on the former president.
Democrats and Democratic-aligned groups are salivating over the opportunity afforded to them by Trump’s selection of the Buckeye state senator as his No. 2, citing what they described as The Independent as a mix of opposition research that will be used to make Vance politically toxic to undecided and persuadable voters within weeks.
Democrats seized the opportunity Tuesday morning with a series of billboards posted around the Milwaukee area highlighting Vance’s ties to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
The signs show Trump and Vance together with the words “Trump-Vance” and “Project 2025” printed between them.
The different versions of the signs have different messages beneath the letters “Project 2025,” but each describes a consequence of implementing the controversial plan. One reads, “Ban abortion, punish women,” while another cites Trump’s promise to be a dictator from “day one” of his second term. Others say Trump and Vance will “eliminate the (Affordable Care Act)” and “destroy Social Security” or enact “tax cuts for billionaires” and “higher costs for you.”
In a statement, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd said Vance is joining Trump in his “campaign with an extreme Project 2025 agenda, and the American people deserve to know that they are planning to take away their health care, dismantle Social Security, strip away their reproductive freedoms, and advertise for big corporations on the backs of working families.”
“If Trump was trying to distance himself from Project 2025, then he probably shouldn’t have chosen as his running mate the man who just days ago said the extreme plan is full of ‘good ideas. ’ The more the American people learn about Trump and Vance and their terrifying Project 2025 agenda, the clearer the choice will be to elect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ vision that protects our basic freedoms in November,” he added.
The Independent learned that the billboards are part of what will be a unified campaign effort by the DNC and Biden to attack Vance on political grounds.
The theory behind these attacks is that the Trump-Vance agenda is deeply unpopular with voters and is seen as extreme and dangerous, but only once voters know the details.
In an era when personalities often matter more than policies to a critical mass of voters, operatives most attuned to Vance’s personal attributes are also licking their chops at the chance to sink their teeth into what they see as a larger-than-life target.
The view of some of these outside groups is that Vance, while undoubtedly accomplished, is also fundamentally unsympathetic.
A person involved in an anti-Trump political committee said The Independent that voters can expect to see significant opposition research deployed against Vance to paint him as “too weird.”
Vance, they said, would be an easy target for the caricature of an outdated, bumbling “fleece-jacket techie” with “strange beliefs” and “creepy friends.” The latter category includes Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and right-wing venture capitalists Peter Thiel and David Sacks.
They also pointed to the Ohioan’s ties to even more fringe figures like Curtis Yarvin, a literal monarchist who believes the American system of government should be replaced by what Yarvin has described in his writings as “a national chief executive or what is called a dictator.”
“Vance was essentially created in a lab by Peter Thiel,” the source said, referring to the PayPal co-founder and major Republican donor who has funded numerous “new right” political candidates.
“Trump will promote him as this former US Marine who has lived the American dream, but when we’re done, he’ll be known as a monarchist who has really strange ideas about women.”
