As the November election draws closer and closer, the Republican Party finds itself navigating turbulent waters. Central to the unrest are Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance.
The GOP is allegedly concerned by Trump’s controversial remarks from a recent gathering with Black journalists, in which he questioned Harris’s Black identity by claiming that she was “Indian all the way” before she “became a Black person.” The comments were made at a time when the party is trying to win over more voters. Vance’s words from 2021, in which he proposed that parents should have greater voting power than non-parents and condemned childless women in leadership jobs, further added to the uproar.
The Trump team is making a concerted effort to shift the focus of the conversation to important topics that appeal to their supporters, including economic and border security. But the consequences of these and similar comments could have already done a great deal of harm. A common concern among many in the party was expressed by Paul Dame, the chairman of the Vermont GOP, who fears that moderate supporters may get alienated by the return of divisive language reminiscent of Trump’s 2020 campaign. “If the next three months continue in this vein, Trump could see his support among centrist voters deteriorate.”
Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, stressed that the Ohio senator needs to tread cautiously to keep Trump’s trust—a challenge made more difficult by the former’s own contentious past. The Trump team has not wavered in its support of Vance in the face of criticism, painting him as the victim of a biased media landscape and fervent Democratic assaults. A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Steven Cheung, stressed that the president is still “thrilled with the choice” of Vance as his running mate, saying that together they make a strong team that is ready to win back the White House on Nov. 5.
However, within the party, there is a palpable sense of concern and a desire for a more disciplined approach. GOP consultant Alex Conant, who previously worked on Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, pointed out the risk that Trump’s recent comments could remind voters of the controversies that contributed to his defeat in 2020. “We’re talking about Trump for the first time in weeks, but the risk is he’s reminding voters of the very things they didn’t like in 2020,” Conant observed.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas equally lamented Trump’s focus on Harris’s racial identity. Cornyn expressed a preference for critiquing her policy record instead, stating, “She owns all of the failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration and has taken some of the most extreme positions imaginable.”
Many within the party perceive Vance’s alignment with Trump’s populist conservatism as potentially alienating to more traditional Republican voters. Paul Dame and others suggested that alternative candidates, such as North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum or Florida Senator Marco Rubio, might have offered broader appeal. “It looked like a pick made when Trump was confident he was facing Biden, but with Kamala Harris likely to be the Democratic nominee, the Vance pick seems like a missed opportunity,” Dame said.
