J. D. Vance is the future of MAGA

The vice-presidency of the United States has always been the butt of jokes. ‘I don’t plan to be buried until I’ve died,’ quipped Daniel Webster when he declined William Henry Harrison’s offer of the role. John Nance Garner, who served as FDR’s vice-president, dismissed it as ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss’. Even John Adams, the first to hold the office, was equivocal: ‘I am Vice-President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.’

He may prove to be a more effective standard bearer for Trumpism than Trump himself

That ‘everything’ has proven elusive. Fewer than a third of vice-presidents have gone on to occupy the Oval Office and only four have won the presidential election while vice-president: Adams in 1797, Jefferson in 1801, Martin Van Buren in 1837 and George H.W. Bush in 1988. Yet few people would deny that J.D. Vance, the 40-year-old Vice-President-elect who will be inaugurated on Monday, is now not only the overwhelming favourite for the GOP nomination in 2028 but that he also stands a good chance of winning the next presidential election.

Donald Trump’s selection of Vance as his running-mate defied conventional wisdom. Running-mates are almost always chosen as a matter of pure tactical calculation, whether it is to add youth to the ticket (Nixon in 1952, Quayle in 1988) or experience (Biden in 2008, LBJ in 1960); to broaden a campaign’s geographic reach (Truman in 1944, Bush Sr in 1980); or to appeal to women and ethnic minorities (Harris in 2020). It is a measure of how confident Trump was of victory that he dismissed these considerations. Choosing Vance was, by any measure, desperately risky: he entered the race as the least popular running-mate in modern history.

Why did Trump take the gamble? It was Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump who advanced the winning argument.