JD Vance, the new heir to Trump’s MAGA movement, steps into the spotlight

(CNN) — A faint burst of applause broke out from the Republican National Convention floor as Sen. JD Vance took the stage Tuesday afternoon in Milwaukee for the first time as Donald Trump’s running mate.

The Gettysburg Address was loaded into the teleprompters, adjusted for Vance’s towering frame. Arms crossed over a navy suit and gold tie – an Ohio State man dangerously close to sporting Michigan colors – Vance looked out during his midday walkthrough, a hint of a smile on his face. Before him was an arena of empty chairs soon to be filled by members of the party he has been hand-picked to one day lead.

On Wednesday, Vance addressed the convention not only as the party’s vice presidential nominee but as its MAGA heir-in-waiting.

“Mr. President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me,” he said, looking toward Trump. “And what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision that you have for this country.”

In tapping a 39-year-old first-term senator from the country’s heartland over more experienced Republicans with deeper party ties, Trump is looking ahead to the future of his political movement. Those close to Trump say he is looking to Vance to lead the party beyond his time in office, an expectation he never seriously harbored for his previous vice president, Mike Pence.

“It’s very clear that Trump wants someone who can carry the movement on,” a person close to Trump told CNN said of the Vance selection.

His choice of whom to carry the torch remained concealed until Trump was ready to reveal it, but the anointment of Vance shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Trump’s campaign had said for months that what the former president was looking for in a running mat was “a strong leader who will make a great president for eight years after his next four-year term concludes.”

How could that person be North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who would be 71 years old next election cycle? Or Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican well liked by donors but who still faces skeptics 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, pugilistic leaders styled after Trump?

“What Trump’s doing here,” said Jack Posobiec, a right-wing devotee of the former president with millions of online followers, “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 has come up through his movement, through his wing of the party, as opposed to the more neo-conservative George Bush wing.”

Once a self-described “Never Trump guy,” Vance reemerged 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 their family, identified early the traits he believed made Vance worth reconsidering. Vance carried a compelling backstory – son of a heroin addict, raised by his grandparents in poverty-stricken rust-belt Ohio before enlisting in the Marines and attending the Ohio State University and Yale Law – that he captured in his best selling book “Hillbilly Elegy.” He was a gifted public speaker, too, whose message resonated with middle America and put elites in both parties on notice.

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

As a senator, Vance quickly won over the thought leaders of Trump’s populist movement. He has not only proven an effective defender of Trump on cable television, he has also articulated the isolationist wing skepticism of US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. A deeply reported Politico profile that declared Vance the standard-bearer of the New Right included glowing praise from the vanguards of the MAGA movement. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said Vance was “by the far the smartest and the deepest (senator) of any I’ve ever met.”

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon – who hosted Vance occasionally on his far-right “War Room” podcast before heading to prison earlier this month for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – told Politico in March: “I’m sure he’ll run for the presidency one day.”

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

“I have seen his actions in the Senate,” said Trump Jr., who will introduce Vance on Wednesday. “I’ve gotten to know him over the last few years. The youth, the vigor, his ability to really prosecute the case. I see him do so much better in, sort of, let’s call it hostile media territory.”

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

“If Donald Trump feels confident and has that certainty for JD to carry that mantle, he is going to make sure that person is sincere in his belief in the MAGA movement, in 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, doubters remain. A senior Republican official told CNN, “I don’t know what Vance brings to the ticket” and another Republican adviser working on House and Senate races bristled at the suggestion Vance could help attract voters turned off by Trump.

“How does JD win over (Nikki) Haley voters?” the adviser asked.

Challenges certainly remain for Vance to maintain his position as next in line to the throne in Trump’s party.

No one other than Trump has demonstrated they can hold together the loose coalition of voters that currently make up the party’s base, some of whom never cast a ballot before the former reality television star decided to dabble in politics. Only Trump has managed to appease evangelical voters and pro-business Republicans while still convincing some of the Democratic Party’s bedrock supporters – Black voters, Latinos and union households – to consider switching parties.

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

Trump, too, is known to turn quickly on those who he doesn’t feel are still politically useful to him. No one knows that better than Vance’s predecessor on the GOP ticket, Pence.

As one long-time confidante of the former president put it, Vance “will be the front runner as long as (Trump) says so.”

Other Republicans will also certainly have a say as to who they believe should lead the party next – especially if the Trump-Vance ticket fails to win back the White House this November.

“This doesn’t guarantee it 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 depends on getting elected first and foremost but what happens after that.”

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

“So much can transpire, but I think there’s absolutely potential for that,” Crawford said. “And if Trump has confidence in him, the Iowa delegation will get behind that as well.”

Inside Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political orbit, hope rested on Trump naming Burgum as his running mate, believing it would leave a greater opening for someone else to emerge as the new face of the GOP in four years, multiple people told CNN.

One fundraiser for DeSantis said Vance as a “young peer leader of the Trump wing of the party” represents an immediate threat to the Florida governor’s political future.

Among Trump’s staunchest allies, people like DeSantis who challenged the former president or didn’t stand by him sufficiently are now viewed as unworthy successors.

“Gov. DeSantis had a perfect opportunity to be the heir if he wanted to be,” Posobiec told CNN. “He could’ve endorsed Donald Trump and he could’ve been his greatest champion throughout this entire process and maybe it would’ve been him getting the pick today. But as we know, he made his decision.”

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

“You can forget about Youngkin,” Fredericks told CNN from the convention floor Monday. “Trump iced them all out. This is his legacy. He knows it. He has four years and he’s done. So he needs someone to continue that legacy. That’s why he picked JD Vance.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Alayna Treene contributed to this story.

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