Vance has had a meteoric rise in the Republican Party, from a best-selling author and never-Trumper in 2016.

I'm a never-Trump guy.

I never liked him.

To winning a U.S.

Senate seat at age 38.

And now, he's former President Donald Trump's running mate.

Elect Donald Trump in 2024.

God bless you, sir.

Vance is very much a creature of the new Republican Party that Trump has shaped in his image.

By picking Vance, Trump is showing he's doubling down on this MAGA agenda.

It's a full-throated, populist, national conservative ticket.

Here's why the Trump-Vance ticket is a big deal for the future of the MAGA movement and the GOP.

J.D.

Vance first catapulted to fame in 2016, after he published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

The book detailed his experience growing up poor in Rust Belt, Ohio, and making it to Yale Law School.

It was a smash hit and became a Ron Howard-directed movie in 2020.

I know I could have done better, but you got to decide, you want to be somebody or not?

We're trying to paint this white nationalist movement as a movement primarily of poor and working class Americans, when the truth is that the alt-right is actually led by better educated and, frankly, pretty well-to-do people.

In his initial foray into the public spotlight, Vance was very much anti-Trump.

His book made clear that he was a conservative.

Many people latched onto it as an explanation for Trump's sort of surprise success in the Republican Party and then in the election.

When Vance launched his campaign for the Senate in 2021, his stance on Trump underwent a big shift.

I obviously didn't fully appreciate the president's appeal in 2016.

Yeah, he said some bad things about me, but that was before he knew me and then he fell in love.

He even described himself to me in one interview as a flip-flop flipper on Trump, saying that he had similar policy views but was against Trump as a person until he realized that Trump was advocating for the policies that he supported.

While running for Senate, Vance was one of several pro-Trump candidates in the primary.

But in one debate, Vance was the lone candidate to oppose a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.

And that caught the eye of Trump's inner circle.

What a no-fly zone, it sounds nice, like we ask the Russians not to fly planes over Ukraine.

What it means in practice is American Marine Corps pilots, Air Force pilots and Navy pilots getting in dogfights with Russian jets, which the problem with that is it's not in our vital national interest.

That impressed Donald Trump Jr. and he began advocating for Vance's candidacy, including with his father.

All the greatest and boldest conservatives in the country are behind campaign.

Trump's unique brand of conservative politics has been reshaping the core tenets of the Republican Party since he was elected in 2016, like tighter borders and a retreat from the world stage.

He's changed the GOP so much that the Republican National Committee recently revamped its platform to a new, stripped-down version, one that focuses more on Trump himself than on specific policy decisions.

Trump has been changing all of those stances to the point where many older Republicans feel it's no longer recognizable.

At the same time, a movement has arisen in Trump's image that believes in his policies and believes that the Republican Party should be reshaped in his image.

Believers in this movement, referred to as the New Right or National Conservatives, take Trump's impulses and turn them into doctrine.

Vance has become one of their leading voices.

The American people, again, they need people who put the interests of their own citizens first, of our own citizens first.

And that's what this entire movement is all about.

And I think that's what the Trump presidency will be about if we give him another shot, as I expect that we will.

When Trump selected Mike Pence to be his running mate, that was a pick very much intended to reassure Republican voters.

Pence being a traditional conservative, an evangelical Christian, was someone who regular Republicans who saw Trump as sort of an arivist in their party could look at Pence and say, all right, that's someone I can trust.

Fast forward to 2024, it's clear that Trump no longer sees a need to share power with that wing of the Republican Party.

Right after Trump's attempted assassination in July, Vance was one of the first Republicans to publicly cast blame at the Biden campaign for the shooting.

As Republicans unite around the Trump-Vance ticket after the July 13th attack, Democrats remain in disarray following President Biden's disastrous debate performance in June.

Biden has vowed to stay in the race despite continuing calls from fellow Democrats to step away from his place at the top of the ticket.

I think there's a whole pool of voters there in the center of the electorate who really are not being spoken to by either candidate because of the way these tickets have shaped up.

Senators Marco Rubio from Florida and Tim Scott from South Carolina were also contenders on Trump's VP shortlist.

Both could have appealed more to minority voters, something that Trump has historically struggled with.

Choosing Vance allows Trump to shore up support among the white working class.

Ohio is also part of the Rust Belt and the most crucial states in this election are those Rust Belt states.

That white working class vote is a vote that is also very crucial throughout those Rust Belt battlegrounds.

There is a hope by some of Vance's backers and some on Trump's team that he could potentially galvanize those voters even more than Trump already does to juice Republican turnout in those states.

What was the Russia collusion hoax?

It was about destroying Donald Trump.

This ridiculous New York fraud case.

It's about destroying the guy's wealth before he reenters the Oval Office.

It's good to see you, man.

Thank you.

He is really a bet on the future as well.

A bet on the future of the Republican Party and a bet on the future of the populist conservative movement.

Trump would never say he's anointing a successor, but Vance was decades younger than the other potential picks that were under consideration for vice president.

And in choosing such a young person to be on the ticket with him, there's an unavoidable implication that Trump has sort of chosen an heir, chosen someone to take the mantle of that MAGA movement and go forward with it, whether it's as a future president himself or simply as someone who is poised to exert great influence in the Republican Party, continuing to shape it along those populist conservative lines for years or potentially decades to come.