JD Vance, the new heir to Trump’s MAGA movement, is in the spotlight

A soft round of applause erupted from the floor of the Republican National Convention as Sen. JD Vance took the stage Tuesday afternoon (16) in Milwaukee for the first time as Donald Trump’s running mate.

The Gettysburg Address was loaded onto the teleprompters, adjusted to fit Vance’s imposing frame. Arms crossed over a navy blue suit and gold tie — an Ohioan dangerously close to sporting Michigan colors — Vance looked through it, a slight smile on his face.

Before him was an arena of empty chairs that would soon be filled by the members of the party he was handpicked to one day lead.

On Wednesday (17), when Vance speaks at the convention, he will do so not only as the party’s vice presidential candidate, but as its heir to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

By choosing a 39-year-old senator in his first term over more experienced Republicans with deeper ties to the party, Trump is looking to the future of his political movement.

Those close to Trump say he expects Vance to lead the party beyond his time in office, an expectation he never seriously held for his previous vice president, Mike Pence.

“It’s very clear that Trump wants someone who can move the movement forward,” a person close to Trump told CNN about Vance being chosen.

His choice of torchbearer remained under wraps until Trump was ready to reveal it, but Vance’s anointment should not have come as a surprise. Trump’s campaign has said for months that the former president was looking for a running mate “a strong leader who will be a great president for eight years after his next four-year term.”

How could that person have been North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who would have been 71 next election cycle? Or Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican who is well-liked by donors but still faces skepticism among Trump’s most loyal supporters? How could it have been anyone other than Vance, who in two years in Washington has embodied a new generation of populist, combative leaders shaped by Trump?

“What Trump is doing here is showing that he wants the next generation of ‘America First,’ the next generation of conservatives, the next generation of the party to really be one that came up through his movement, through his wing of the party, as opposed to the more neoconservative wing of George Bush,” said Jack Posobiec, a right-wing devotee of the former president with millions of online followers.

Once a self-described “Never Trump guy,” Vance re-emerged in politics as a supporter with the help of the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who has always understood and connected with his father’s most ardent supporters better than most in his family and quickly identified the traits he believed made Vance worthy of reconsideration.

Vance had a compelling story — the son of a heroin addict, raised by his grandparents in impoverished industrial Ohio before enlisting in the Marines and attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School — which he tells in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy.” He was also a gifted public speaker whose message resonated with middle America and put elites in both parties on alert.

The two became close friends, a relationship that helped Vance win Trump’s endorsement in a contested primary for an open Ohio Senate seat. Vance eventually won the primary and the 2022 general election for the Senate.

As a senator, Vance quickly won over the intellectual leaders of Trump’s populist movement. He not only proved an effective defender of Trump on cable TV, but also articulated the isolationist wing’s skepticism about U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war.

An in-depth Politico profile that declared Vance the standard-bearer of the New Right included glowing praise from MAGA frontrunners. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said Vance was “by far the smartest and most thoughtful (senator) I have ever met.”

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — who occasionally hosted Vance on his far-right “War Room” podcast before he was arrested earlier this month for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — told Politico in March, “I’m sure he’ll run for president one day.”

Bannon, Carlson and Trump Jr. were instrumental in influencing Trump’s choice, including in conversations with the former president in the days before the announcement. Vance and Trump Jr. embraced on the convention stage Tuesday afternoon as they prepared for their moments in the spotlight.

“I’ve seen his actions in the Senate,” said Trump Jr., who is introducing Vance on Wednesday. “I’ve gotten to know him over the last few years. The youth, the vigor, his ability to really make the case. I see him do that much better in, let’s say, hostile media territory.”

Inside the convention hall, many Republicans quickly rallied behind Vance as their new vice presidential nominee and the future of their party.

“If Donald Trump feels confident and has that certainty that JD can carry that mantle, he’s going to make sure that person is sincere in their belief in the MAGA movement, the ‘America First’ movement,” said Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, a millennial like Vance who has become a leading voice among the new generation of Republicans.

Still, skeptics remain. A senior Republican official told CNN : “I don’t know what Vance brings to the ticket,” and another Republican adviser who works on House and Senate campaigns bristled at the suggestion that Vance could help woo voters turned off by Trump. “How does JD win over (Nikki) Haley voters?” the adviser asked.

There are certainly challenges for Vance in maintaining his position as next in line to succeed Trump in his party. No one other than Trump has proven capable of holding together the loose coalition of voters who currently make up the party’s base, some of whom had never voted before the former reality TV star decided to venture into politics.

Only Trump has managed to appease evangelical voters and pro-business Republicans while still convincing some of the Democratic Party’s most solid supporters — black voters, Latinos and unionized families — to consider switching parties.

As some of his detractors eagerly pointed out during Trump’s campaign, Vance won his Senate seat two years ago by just 6 points in solidly Republican Ohio — trailing the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, by 19 points in the same election.

Trump is also known for quickly turning on those he no longer deems politically useful to him. No one knows this better than Vance’s predecessor on the GOP ticket, Mike Pence.

As a longtime confidant of the former president put it, Vance “will be the favorite as long as (Trump) says so.”

Other Republicans will also certainly have a say in who they believe should lead the party next — especially if the Trump-Vance ticket fails to retake the White House in November.

“It’s not a guarantee, but Ronald Reagan was president for two terms and George Herbert Walker Bush was president after that,” said former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, himself once considered the future of his party. “In the end, it all comes down to first getting elected and then what happens after that.”

Still, Vance is seen as an immediate obstacle for anyone looking beyond Trump to 2028. Michelle Crawford, the president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women, cautioned that four years is a long time, but acknowledged that Vance would likely have a big advantage in her state, the traditional first stop on the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

“A lot can happen, but I think there’s absolutely potential for it,” Crawford said. “And if Trump has confidence in him, the Iowa delegation will support that as well.”

Within Gov. Ron DeSantis’s political orbit, hope rested on Trump naming Burgum as his running mate, believing it would leave a bigger opening for someone to emerge as the new face of the Republican Party in four years, several people told CNN .

A DeSantis fundraiser said Vance, as a “young leader of the Trump wing of the party,” poses an immediate threat to the Florida governor’s political future. Among Trump’s most ardent allies, people like DeSantis who have challenged the former president or failed to support him sufficiently are now seen as unworthy successors.

“Governor DeSantis had a perfect opportunity to be the heir apparent if he wanted to,” Posobiec told CNN “He could have endorsed Donald Trump and he could have been his biggest champion throughout this whole process and maybe he would have been the one getting the nomination today. But as we know, he made his choice.”

John Fredericks, a longtime conservative radio host in Virginia who has interviewed Trump on multiple occasions, called Vance’s selection a “12-year legacy choice” that “ended the presidential aspirations” of his home state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, and others who had hoped for a shot at the party’s nomination once Trump was no longer in the race.

“You can forget about Youngkin,” Fredericks told CNN at the convention on Monday (15). “Trump has eliminated them all. This is his legacy. He knows it. He has four years and it’s over. So he needs someone to continue that legacy. That’s why he chose JD Vance.”

*With information from Jeff Zeleny and Alayna Treene, from CNN.