J.D. Vance’s MAGA-Moderate Tightrope

J.D. Vance had an assignment. For months, the Republican vice presidential nominee has been dogged by controversies: from the resurfacing of his three-year-old remarks complaining about “childless cat ladies” to his spreading the baseless claim that Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets. Vance’s deliberate provocations have endeared him to Donald Trump but haven’t shown signs of resonating with the non-MAGA segment of the electorate. He’s currently polling the lowest of the four major candidates. 

On Tuesday night, when Vance squared off against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in the vice presidential debate, he sought to change the narrative by dropping his rabble-rousing persona. He rarely hurled broadsides against his counterpart on stage. Instead, Vance owned the role of being Trump’s “policy attack dog”—as the campaign has dubbed him—against Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The strategy became clear early on, when Walz blamed Trump for enabling Tehran’s march toward a nuclear weapon by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal; the Iranian regime’s breakout time to develop weapons-grade uranium for a bomb is now only a matter of weeks. “Who has been the vice president for the last three and a half years?” Vance shot back. “The answer is your running mate, not mine.” On the border crisis, he told Walz: “I think you wanna solve this problem, but I don’t think Kamala Harris does.”

A Yale-trained lawyer, Vance stuck mostly to policy. He spent more time lambasting Harris’ record and proposals than confronting Walz. Sources close to Vance say that was because voters rarely cast their ballots with the running mate top of mind. It was also because of the fundamental dynamics of the 2024 race. While voters already have baked-in views of Trump, Harris is less of a known commodity. To that end, both sides are racing to define her for persuadable voters in battleground states. 

Vance’s pivot was an unspoken retort to Walz calling him “weird” and Democrats attacking him over his hard-right podcast commentary. That required some rhetorical acrobatics when discussing issues such as abortion. He denied ever supporting a national abortion ban; in 2022, he said on a podcast: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” On Tuesday night, though, he criticized his own party. “I want us, as the Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” he said. “We have to do a better job of winning back people’s trust.” 

Throughout the night, Vance attempted to strike a human tone. He spoke of his blue-collar roots growing up in southern Ohio and recounted a friend carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. When Walz said his son witnessed a shooting, Vance said, “I’m sorry about that … Christ have mercy.” 

Since being tapped as Trump’s VP, Vance has appealed to different voters in different settings. On the trail, Vance has traveled most often to the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where the campaign believes he resonates with Rust Belt voters. Online, his acerbic pugilism makes him a favorite of the MAGA base. On the debate stage, Vance tried to thread the needle of attracting moderates while staying true to the America First creed. On the hot-button issue of immigration, he defended Trump’s plan for a mass deportation operation but deflected when asked whether a Trump-Vance Administration would separate children from their families.

For his part, Walz maintained his Midwestern folksiness and was less aggressive than Democrats expected him to be. He made a cringe-inducing gaffe when he said, “I’ve become friends with school shooters.” But he did successfully set one trap. The Minnesota governor engineered a powerful sound bite when he asked Vance point-blank whether Trump lost the 2020 election. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?” Walz, who otherwise seemed unable to land a punch all night, interrupted him. “That is a damning non-answer.”

It was a moment that reflected Vance’s complicated campaign challenge: to simultaneously assuage swing voters and energize the MAGA base without alienating his boss.