When Vance endorsed Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the Ohioan said he was doing so in part because there were no new wars in Trump’s first term. In the Signalgate controversy earlier this year, Vance was the most skeptical of the Yemen strikes of Trump’s senior national security team. On the same day he defended Trump, Vance denied his staff was leaking information to the press that contradicted the administration’s foreign-policy line. 

Unlike George H.W. Bush under Ronald Reagan, Vance isn’t seen as less of a true believer than the boss or a throwback to an older form of Republicanism. Vance is seen as a more consistent and committed populist, even if Trump started the MAGA movement a decade ago.

During Trump’s first term, Mike Pence was also a throwback to an earlier Republican era and a bridge between MAGA and the mainstream conservative movement. That is much less necessary in the second term, when Trump is the unquestioned leader of the party and the former vice president has taken to defending pre-Trump conservatism from populism.

Unlike Dan Quayle under Bush the elder, Vance isn’t seen as a lightweight. Yes, he is much younger than Trump and was only a freshman senator when he was elected vice president. But Vance has written an acclaimed book, Hillbilly Elegy, and many articles about wonkish policy topics. He has proven an effective messenger for their successful 2024 campaign and the Trump administration.

Vance is an important figure in a political movement indisputably spawned by Trump. He is also serving as vice president under a term-limited president, giving him as big a stake as anyone in the administration’s success ahead of the 2028 elections.

The vice president had been a Trump critic early on, and sometimes a harsh one. This did not stop Trump from endorsing Vance in a crowded, competitive Republican Senate primary in Ohio. Months after Vance won that primary and the general election as other Republican Senate candidates struggled in the 2022 midterms, he returned the favor by endorsing Trump’s renomination, while Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was still seen as a threat. Vance’s endorsement also came before the first Trump indictment. 

Vance leapfrogged many more established Republicans to become Trump’s running mate, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio, the former Florida senator who is now secretary of state, Doug Burgum, the former North Dakota governor who is now secretary of the interior, and Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the first term who now appears to be on the outs with the vice president.

You would certainly expect the vice president to defend the president. Kamala Harris went down with the ship last year defending Joe Biden. But Vance is doing so from an unusual vantage point, as an important movement leader in his own right who by all appearances is being actively groomed as a successor. (Trump has downplayed, and sometimes even denied, 2028 succession plan talk.)

That’s why Vance is in a position to try to reassure MAGA dissenters about any perceived Trump apostasies, though it may involve the expenditure of political capital the vice president will need later.

“President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads,” Vance said when the Trump-Musk feud began to spiral out of control. “I’m proud to stand beside him.”

When MAGA influencers began speaking out against Trump’s support of Israel’s military strikes on Iran and any U.S. involvement, Vance said, “I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.”

TRUMP TESTS SUPPORTERS’ FAITH A DECADE INTO HIS LEADERSHIP OF MAGA AND GOP

Many of these same MAGA influencers had vouched for Vance over other potential VP picks or lobbied Trump to add him to the 2024 Republican ticket.

Vance has more credibility as a Trump defender than other subordinates in the administration. He also has a lot more riding on the outcome.