{"id":557,"date":"2024-11-11T09:31:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/they-dont-like-trump-but-they-really-really-like-vance\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T09:31:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:19","slug":"they-dont-like-trump-but-they-really-really-like-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/they-dont-like-trump-but-they-really-really-like-vance\/","title":{"rendered":"They don’t like Trump. But they really, really like Vance."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Since before former President Donald Trump announced Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate<\/a>, conventional wisdom has held<\/a> that this wasn\u2019t a great pick. Vance is \u201chistorically unpopular<\/a>,\u201d Democrats have charged, and even some Republicans have been unenthusiastic.<\/p>\n

Yet there\u2019s a group of voters for whom Vance, not Trump, is the GOP ticket\u2019s attraction \u2014 its sole attraction. These never-Trump maybe-Vance voters aren\u2019t numerous, and they may not yet know how they\u2019ll vote. But in a close race, their decisions could make a difference.<\/p>\n

I stumbled upon this group by chance: I happen to know a few people thinking this way in real life. When I sketched the voter profile on Substack<\/a>, the response was swift and surprising, both for me and for voters who didn\u2019t realize there were others like them. This is a small sampling and not a scientific poll, mind you, but the cumulative nature of the collected testimonials reveals a certain type. \u201cDang, you described me perfectly here,\u201d commented Thomas, an evangelical dad from Georgia.<\/p>\n

These never-Trump maybe-Vance voters aren\u2019t numerous. But in a close race, their decisions could make a difference.<\/p>\n

Like Thomas, typical never-Trump maybe-Vance voters are men. They\u2019re millennials, or perhaps younger Gen X or older Gen Z. They\u2019re married fathers (or want to be) who went to college and have white-collar jobs. And they\u2019re churchgoing, but probably not in the charismatic stream of Protestantism where Trump is the subject of devotion and prophecy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crucially, these voters have all the moral objections and gut aversion to Trump that conservative Christians were expected to have in 2016. They likely don\u2019t call themselves never-Trumpers and aren\u2019t preoccupied with criticizing the former president as self-identified never-Trumpers tend to be. But they\u2019ve never voted for Trump, didn\u2019t like him in office and don\u2019t want him re-elected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vance, however, is intriguing for them, and not only on policy. With some issues, mostly around trade and labor<\/a>, Vance\u2019s policies may actually be a drawback. Other positions, like his skepticism<\/a> of U.S. military intervention abroad, might be pluses. But the big draw is Vance\u2019s orientation around fatherhood and family, the way he links<\/a> children and the American dream and his clear interest in pronatalist family policy<\/a> and fertility rates<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s views on \u201cthe value of family resonate strongly with me,\u201d said Eddie Becker, who attends a nondenominational church and expressed dismay over ongoing Trump support among fellow Christians and Republicans. \u201cAside from snarky \u2018childless cat ladies\u2019-type remarks,\u201d Becker said of Vance, \u201cI believe he does care about families and values children.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Christina in Boise, Idaho, who told me she fits this voter profile except for her sex, Vance\u2019s disparagement of \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d merely signaled his seriousness about family. \u201cI admire his love of his wife, children, Mamaw and his faith,\u201d she said. \u201cI see people balk at the mere idea of children, and this scares me.\u201d In comparison, for her, Vance \u201cis spot on.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Vance talks about family is also part of why these voters identify with him, which is a significant element of his appeal. Rob Spangler, a Maryland Presbyterian and father of four, highlighted that sense of identification when explaining to me his interest in Vance. Thomas added that watching Vance \u201cis the first time I\u2019ve seen someone in politics and thought, \u2018That could be me.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the family vibes, some of this alignment is as simple as commonalities of age and stage: Vance is a young father and the first millennial on a major-party ticket after decades of boomer dominance. But that level of resonance could\u2019ve happened with any peer-aged candidate, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy. These voters\u2019 affinity for Vance goes deeper.<\/p>\n

Vance is a young father and the first millennial on a major party ticket after decades of boomer dominance. <\/p>\n

Like them, Vance is bookish and speaks seriously about his Christian faith<\/a>. He\u2019s the first viable contender for high office with whom they\u2019d like to have a beer<\/a>. In Vance, they see someone \u2014 in starkest contrast to Trump \u2014 who could be a friend under other circumstances. Several told me that when Vance is attacked as \u201cweird,\u201d they bristle a bit. If he\u2019s weird, they\u2019re weird, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to say how many never-Trump maybe-Vance voters there are. Maybe the most useful data comes from a Cygnal survey<\/a> last month of 1,500 likely voters. In most demographics, including unmarried men and men who didn\u2019t go to college, Trump\u2019s favorability ratings were statistically identical to or higher than Vance\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among married men and men who went to college, however, Vance had a more favorable rating by a 4- to 5-percentage-point margin. Cygnal also isolated answers from \u201cdouble haters,\u201d the small (and shrinking<\/a>) subset of voters who reject both major-party candidates. For them, Trump\u2019s favorability sits at zero, but Vance\u2019s is as high as 33%.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t large numbers. I don\u2019t think this group numbers in the millions, not even at the national scale. But that polling suggests there could be enough never-Trump maybe-Vance voters for their decisions to matter in the five states<\/a>, as of this writing, with less than 1-point gaps in the presidential polls.<\/p>\n

The question, then, is whether never<\/em> loses to maybe <\/em>\u2014 whether they stick to an eight-year aversion or decide that voting for Trump is a price worth paying to vote for Vance. The choice may well turn on how they expect a Trump-Vance administration to run. Would Vance wield real power, perhaps becoming president<\/a> himself? Or would he be relegated to frippery and dirty work for a lame duck?<\/p>\n

The voters I spoke with were mostly undecided. Luis, a millennial in Virginia, expects to cast a write-in vote. Though he likes how Vance recognizes \u201cthe way modern life makes various social ties harder to form,\u201d particularly \u201cregarding the birth rate,\u201d the candidate\u2019s election denial and vitriol are obstacles to earning his vote this year.<\/p>\n

Thomas is leaning third-party for president but favoring\u00a0the GOP farther down the ballot. Christina won\u2019t commit until she\u2019s in the voting booth, but she said she\u2019ll probably vote \u201cTrump-Vance and then go to confession and pray some more for our country.\u201d Becker is still mulling options, but he\u2019s disappointed Vance failed to \u201ccounter the Trump cult\u201d in the GOP. \u201cAll I can say for sure,\u201d he concluded, \u201cis that I won\u2019t be voting for Donald Trump.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spangler, too, remains undecided. On the debate stage, Vance struck him as reasonable and diplomatic, a sharp contrast to his running mate. \u201cI\u2019m still incredibly conflicted about it,\u201d Spangler told me. \u201cMy mail-in ballot stares at me almost every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/span>Bonnie Kristian<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Bonnie Kristian<\/a> is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today. She is the author of\u00a0\u201cUntrustworthy<\/a>\u201d and a fellow at Defense Priorities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since before former President Donald Trump announced Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate, conventional wisdom has held that this wasn\u2019t a great pick. Vance is \u201chistorically unpopular,\u201d Democrats have charged, and even some Republicans have been unenthusiastic. Yet there\u2019s a group of voters for whom Vance, not Trump, is the GOP ticket\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}