GOP pins its hopes for younger voters on Vance

Republicans believe 39-year-old Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) will appeal to younger voters as part of the newly minted GOP presidential ticket.

Former President Trump named the millennial as his running mate this week during the Republican National Convention.

While Democrats argue that Vance’s platform doesn’t align with the views of younger voters, members of the GOP believe Trump’s vice-presidential pick could attract several key cohorts. 

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” said Kyle Schroeder, the 28-year-old chair of the Wisconsin Young Republicans, when asked what it was like to see someone near his generation on the top of the presidential ticket. 

Trump capped off months of speculation on Monday with his choice. Vance was largely seen as among the top three finalists in contention for the role, which also included Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. 

In some ways, Vance is limited in the kind of additions he can offer the Republican presidential ticket: He hails from Ohio, which has trended redder in recent years, and his ideology resonates mostly with the staunch core of the GOP base. While the Republican Party has looked to court more voters of color, the GOP presidential ticket includes two white men. 

On the other hand, Vance is much younger than Trump or the Biden-Harris ticket. Vice President Harris is 59, Trump is 78 and Biden is 81. 

Members of the GOP believe his youth will appeal to younger voters — a bloc that will play a critical role in determining which candidate returns to the White House in November. 

“I think this was an awesome pick for young people across the country,” explained Mason Morgan, 28 and the co-founder and executive director of the conservative youth group Run Gen Z.   

“Regardless of kind of what ideology you fit into, I think Sen. Vance’s story and success, both his personal and public life, show young voters that which one of these tickets is looking to the future.”

Run Gen Z supports young conservatives running for office. Morgan explained that he believed Vance’s candidacy could inspire young people as they look to enter politics. 

“This is the opening of the floodgates now that we have a millennial on the presidential ticket for the Republican Party, for a lot of young people, and so we're excited to be able to point to Sen. Vance as an example for these young people as they're getting involved, as a reason to start early rather than wait their turn in line, as young people are often told,” he explained. 

Arizona-based GOP consultant Chuck Coughlin called Vance the “embodiment” “of the MAGA movement,” saying he represented the kind of people Trump said have been forgotten.

“It was always presumed that was just political rhetoric and not very heartfelt,” he said. “By picking Vance, he picks somebody that is actually that type of person who comes from that background and is young and smart and successful and a veteran.”

Vance rose to fame as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” which detailed his upbringing and spotlighted white working-class America. He spotlighted his story in his speech at the RNC and vowed that he would “be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

He also didn’t fail to note that he was much younger than the current president, saying in another part of his speech that, “Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington as long as I’ve been alive.”

Vance will make his first campaign appearance alongside Trump on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich. 

While recent polling has shown Biden outperforming Trump among young voters, surveys have also indicated that he’s underperforming his 2020 numbers.

A Harvard Youth Poll released by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Kennedy School in April, for example, showed Biden with a 8-point lead over adults aged 18 to 29 years old – a far cry from the 23-point lead he felt in 2020. 

While the April poll looks at likely voters under 30 years old, Biden leads Trump 19 points. In comparison, Biden led Trump by 30 points among likely voters under 30 in 2020.

Questions are lingering around the fate of Biden’s presidency as more and more Democrats have called on the president to drop out of the race, particularly this week. But the Biden campaign reiterated multiple times that the president’s not going anywhere. 

Democrats, too, believe that the more young voters learn about Vance, the more likely they’ll be turned off. They’ve pointed, for example, to his opposition to student loan forgiveness and to his comments on abortion. 

“...Despite being a millennial, JD Vance does not represent the values and priorities of young voters. His conservative views on all of these issues is more in line with older generations of voters across the country, rather than with the more progressive stance of young voters,” noted Andrew Muth, 24 and the communications director for the Pennsylvania College Democrats.

Members of the party also suggest Vance isn’t attracting new young voters into the fold, either.

“I think the young voters he brings into the fold are young voters that were already predisposed to vote for the Trump ticket, regardless of who Trump had chosen,” said Miami-based Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi.

Despite Democrats’ skepticism, Republicans see Vance as a smart pick. 

Vince Galko, a former Pennsylvania GOP executive director, argued it was “presumptive” for Democrats to say that Vance’s views didn’t align with those of young voters, noting that not all young people think the same way. 

“Whether you are 18 years or 88 years of age in this country, I think you want to have a strong economy, you want to feel safe walking down your street. You want to know that there's opportunity for you and” your children and grandchildren, Galko explained. 

“His life itself is a story of hope,” he added. “I mean, even if you dislike Republicans, even if you dislike Sen. Vance, you cannot dislike his story.”