When it comes to J.D. Vance, Vice President Kamala Harris might have spoken too soon.
Soon after former President Donald Trump announced Vance as his running mate in the 2024 election, Harris called the Ohio senator to congratulate him and “express her hope that the two can meet in the vice presidential debate,” NBC News reported Monday.
If President Joe Biden is still in the race, and Harris is still in the No. 2 slot on the Democratic ticket as November gets closer, she might get more than she’s bargaining for.
For most Americans, Vance, the freshman senator from Ohio, is nowhere near the kind of household name that Kamala Harris is, but a short compilation of videos from Vance’s public appearances, published by The Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday, gives a working introduction.
The five-minute video begins with Vance on the debate stage with now-former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, his opponent during his debut 2022 campaign for Senate. It ends with a clip from February 2023, showing Vance excoriating Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during a Fox News interview.
Check it out below:
Vance comes across as knowledgeable, competent and likable — even beyond the confines of conservative politics. Those aren’t words often applied to Kamala Harris in public, outside of her background in criminal law.
Will J.D. Vance mop the floor with Kamala Harris during the VP debate?
Harris is also not known for her skills as a serious debater in the political realm. Her best-known moment on a debate stage came during a 2019 Democratic primary debate when she essentially smeared then-nomination rival Joe Biden as a racist for opposing mandatory school busing.
“I do not believe you’re a racist,” she began — which gave the game away.
Anyone else remember when Kamala Harris accused Joe Biden of being a racist during the debates? pic.twitter.com/wePszWfEvx
— Proud Elephant (@ProudElephantUS) July 15, 2024
Her 2020 debate against then-Vice President Mike Pence was more memorable for a fly that landed on Pence’s forehead than for anything either candidate said — though Harris’ imperious, condescending “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking” moments might have been effective in establishing her as a formidable presence, but they might just as well have rubbed all but committed Democrats the wrong way.
The dynamics of a Harris-Vance debate will be different, too.
Pence was defending an administration caught in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic — almost the first half-hour of the 90-minute debate was dominated by COVID. Even the sterling economic and foreign policy record the Trump White House had posted to that point was taking a back seat to the contemporary concerns of fall 2020.
In a Vance-Harris contest, it will be Harris who is defending — and she’ll have far more openings for Vance to attack — the border invasion, inflation, Biden’s stunning weakness on foreign policy — and far fewer accomplishments to fall back on.
As The Daily Caller video makes clear, Vance is an articulate spokesman for the conservative side from racial issues (he’s married to an Indian-American woman and the father of biracial children), to border security, to denouncing the political prosecutions of Donald Trump.
Those are all likely to be contested grounds in any debate between the vice presidential candidates, and Vance has clearly shown he can hold his own.
After watching Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s vice president, Americans should have plenty of reasons to doubt she can hold hers.
If Biden is still on the ticket come the fall, if Harris is still the Democratic candidate for vice president, Vance doesn’t just present a challenge to her keeping the job. He presents a threat — and it’s enormous.
