Election 2024
Trump knows he won’t be president.
He chose to save his legacy and the chance to create a dynasty over his chance for the presidency.
It is the rough consensus of most media outlets and pundits on both sides that November is not looking good for Biden. My personal analysis is, at the moment, a narrow win for Biden 270–268 EVs, mostly concurrent with the recently updated prediction of ABC’s 538 who has Biden winning in 52% of scenarios. Former President Donald Trump has been in the news basically nonstop for the past five days, first from his shooting and now his picking of JD Vance as his Vice Presidential candidate. It is the latter news piece which has given me a look into the mind of the felon turned former President.
Scroll past this paragraph if you are already very familiar with the pros and cons of all VP candidates. There were several people considered for Vice President, each with pros and cons. There was the more unknown but incredibly wealthy North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, the former critic of Trump and now Florida Senator, Marco Rubio; the young author turned senator from Ohio JD Vance and finally the more moderate and only black Republican in the senate, from South Carolina Tim Scott. There were several more before the list began to wean but from leaked vetting documents we know that these were the top contenders. There were arguments that a minority or female VP pick would boost the ticket and prevent republican alienation of anyone who isn’t a white man, if you subscribe to that argument, Tim Scott would be the choice. However just because he is african american doesn’t mean other african americans will vote for him. Doug Burgum is one of the richest governors and entirely self funded his 2024 bid for the republican nomination so if a massive warchest is what you want, then Burgum is your guy. However he is from North Dakota, a very white, conservative state so his electoral history is mostly with a very proven component of the Trump base. Then there’s Marco Rubio, the Florida Senator, who has proven electoral success with Hispanics, a key group for this election cycle. However Florida Hispanics are not the same as sun belt hispanics. Florida hispanics typically come from Cuba, a socialist country whose immigrants are more conservative and have been shell shocked by their socialist government so view democrats less favorably. There are also legal challenges with both Vice Presidential and Presidential nominees being from the same state and Rubio has a long history of criticising Trump. Finally there is JD Vance, who’s only real benefit is that he’s young. So why pick someone young?
There are several reasons but the one i choose to believe is that Donald Trump knows he is too old and likely won’t win this november, so he is passing the torch to the next generation of MAGA. He gave it to someone loyal and similarly extreme — he knew his children were either too incompetent or didn’t care enough to carry on the legacy so he chose a successor. This however also prompts something that I myself and many democrats doubt, does Trump care about anything more than himself, does he care about even his legacy or his impact on history? Because seemingly his every action as president made it appear he didn’t.
There was very little reason to pick Vance, young voters typically trend liberal and the conservative ones would already vote for Trump but the moderates would find his extreme views on abortion and women’s rights far too abrasive. So why pick Vance? It undermines the Trump campaign’s arguments against Harris in 2020 saying she was inexperienced as Vance hasn’t even served in public office for 2 years yet.
One very faulty reason I’ve seen floated is he knows how to speak to rust belt voters. That is true(ish), the rust belt and the blue wall are the key to a democratic victory this november so it would make sense to do everything to prevent this. So does he know how to speak to rust belt voters? Let’s look at the numbers because numbers famously never lie. JD Vance’s only election to public office was to the US Senate in 2022, where he won by 6 points in Ohio. This might be impressive if only two years earlier, Trump had won it by 8, this is a troubling underperformance by Vance especially with it being his only performance. Also while Ohio boasts similar industry and culture to other rust belt states it typically is one of the more conservative of them and just because he can win in Ohio, doesn’t mean he can win in Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, the three most crucial states in this cycle.
Vance takes a harsh anti abortion stance which is increasingly unpopular, especially in the rust belt, something i wrote about and analysed in depth in “The Republican party’s fatal national miscalculation”. Take Michigan, a key rust belt state and a vital brick in the blue wall, Michigan voted in a ballot referendum by a shocking 13 points to have a constitutional right to abortion. Nextdoor in Vance’s home state of Ohio, in a ballot measure last year Ohioans voted overwhelmingly to add a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions’ ‘ with plenty of exceptions until foetal viability. These harsh stances will not work this November nationally, especially in the rust belt, just like they didnt in Ohio in 2023 or in the several states who passed similar measures before it. Mike Pence in 2016 was a strategic choice, he was a evangelical traditional conservative, balancing out Trump but this time, with Vance, even extremists like Trump look moderate next to his current pick.
So this further beckons the question: “Why Vance?”Trump wants a dynasty, a legacy, so he handed over the torch. He knows that by 2028 he will be in too much debt and be too old to run so he handed it over to the younger generation. Burgum and Scott lack major national profiles and Rubio criticised Trump far too much in 2016. Vance did too but he is young enough to be on the ballot for the next 40 years and continue the extremist-MAGA legacy.
If you liked this article you may like my other articles on the 2024 election, like: Trust me, don’t trust the polls. or RFK Jr can’t seem to decide if he is a real candidate. If you liked or were at least intrigued by my writing or perspective, consider following or see more stories of mine below. All support is greatly appreciated.
