OPINION:
I served in the Trump administration for nearly four years until Jan. 20, 2021. One year after President Biden was sworn in, I was surprised and disappointed that my former boss endorsed J.D. Vance in the Ohio Senate primaries. At the time, Mr. Vance was trailing badly, and with good reason: He was wrong for Ohio, the Republican Party and the Senate.
Mr. Vance, who said in 2016 that Mr. Trump’s support “has its basis in racism,” also said the president’s border wall was racist, called him an idiot and even referred to him in unearthed text messages as “America’s Hitler.” Despite this, the former Obama cheerleader showcased an America First, MAGA baptism. Mr. Vance did not just refine his earlier views. In the parlance of former President Barack Obama, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author “fundamentally transformed” his entire political position to ingratiate himself to the one man who could give him power — Donald J. Trump.
This, despite Mr. Vance telling MSNBC in 2016 that he believed Jessica Leeds, a woman who accused Mr. Trump of sexual assault, and then cited Mr. Obama as an inspiration while suggesting his Republican critics were racist in a 2017 New York Times op-ed.
“The president’s example offered something no other public figure could: hope … There were many personal heroes in my life. … But I benefitted, too, from the example of a man whose public life showed that we need not be defeated by the domestic hardships of youth,” Mr. Vance wrote of Mr. Obama. He then called Republican criticism of the Democratic president “one of the great failures of recent political history” and said “part” of the opposition to Mr. Obama “comes from the color of his skin.”
For many of these reasons, half the Ohio delegation from the 2016 Republican National Convention sent a letter to Mr. Trump asking him to “reconsider” his endorsement. The delegation said Mr. Vance had “done nothing since 2016 to earn Ohioans votes,” and that it was a “betrayal” for the former president to endorse someone who called his base “racist.” The delegation reminded Mr. Trump that “winning is important, but so is … winning with honor and integrity.”
Mr. Trump declined to listen, but he should take notice of Mr. Vance’s poor Ohio vote tallies, which suggest he cannot help the former president win the Rust Belt.
Mr. Vance inched across the victory line in 2022 despite being on the same ballot as a strong Republican governor in a crimson state. Despite this, his 6-point lead still fell two points short of the eight point Ohio lead Mr. Trump garnered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and 19 points short of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s 25-point lead.
Mr. Vance only won 2,192,114 votes compared to Mr. DeWine’s 2,580,424. That 19-point disparity means that of the near 2.6 million voters who checked off the same ballot to reelect Ohio’s governor, 388,310 ignored Mr. Vance. His poor Ohio performance is an omen that he will perform even worse in key battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Some of Mr. Vance’s extreme comments will also alienate traditional, Reagan Republicans needed to round up a Republican majority. Five days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Vance told Steve Bannon during his War Room podcast. “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
Not only did Mr. Vance’s heartless comments reveal a dark side, it demonstrated poor judgment since Ohio has a significant Ukrainian population of 42,000. It proved that Mr. Vance thought it was more important to appease Mr. Bannon’s fanbase instead of respecting his potential constituency. That’s not the hallmark of a strategist or leader who can win elections, preside over the Senate, or step in as commander in chief.
Mr. Vance has revealed a sophomoric side about other serious foreign policy issues.
Earlier this year when 60 Minutes, The Insider, and DER SPIEGEL revealed evidence that Russia was behind Havana Syndrome, Mr. Vance doubted the Kremlin’s involvement, commenting on the X social media platform that it “feels like a lot of journalists have lost their minds.” On a previous occasion he referred to America’s intervention in Iraq as an “obsessive focus on moralism,” mocking U.S. foreign policy as “democracy is good, Saddam Hussein is bad.”
On domestic issues, Mr. Vance has expressed eerie views on how America should reform its centuries-old democratic system by suggesting that parents with children should get to cast more votes than those without.
“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds,” Vance said at a 2021 Intercollegiate Studies Institute event. “Let’s do this instead. Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children.”
When he was asked if such a move would “mean that non-parents don’t have as much of a voice as parents” and “that parents get a bigger say in how democracy functions,” Vance said yes.
Even if the aforementioned problems did not exist, Mr. Vance’s lack of experience and his political makeover as a die-hard America Firster does little to offer a Trump ticket any diversity. It is unlikely, that in today’s factionalized environment, a double-shot of MAGA will help Trump win any more votes. Simply put, Mr. Trump has those votes already. Mr. Vance adds nothing to the ticket.
Mr. Trump has several options to fill the shoes of Vice President Mike Pence, whose experience, objectivism, and sincerity helped deliver the Midwest and centrist vote in 2016. Those traits do not apply to Mr. Vance whose opportunism, radicalism and obsequious shapeshifting repels many establishment Republicans and Trumpians alike. History has proven J.D. Vance cannot win Ohio without Donald Trump — and if history is any guide, Mr. Trump will not win the battleground states necessary to prevail with Mr. Vance.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a former Washington prosecutor, and a journalist who served as a Trump appointee at the U.S. Agency for Global Media from 2017-2021. He now serves on the editorial board of The Washington Times.
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