Trump sees former ‘Never Trumper’ JD Vance as a way to expand his base, insiders say

Donald Trump and his campaign see his running mate, Senator JD Vance, as a way to expand Trump’s voter base, according to sources familiar with the matter, intending to lean into past criticisms from Vance to convince voters who disliked the former president to back him in the election.

In the years before Vance ran for the US Senate, he repeatedly criticized Trump and his presidency in interviews where he made clear he never liked the former president and considered him “cultural heroin” and in private conversations, where he suggested Trump was “America’s Hitler”.

But the criticisms, which once angered Trump, are now being seen by the Trump campaign as a unique asset that could resonate with voters who could be in a similar position: people who have previously found Trump unsavory but might prefer him to Biden, the sources said.

The Trump campaign has suggested it wants Vance to lean in to the fact that he was previously a so-called “Never Trumper”, with the hope that it could give independent and uncommitted voters a path towards supporting the former president in November.

Vance could be the standard-bearer for that message in TV appearances and on the campaign trail through battleground states on the Rust belt, the sources said. One aspect that Trump is said to admire in Vance is his ease with appearing on adversarial networks such as CNN and MSNBC.

Related: ‘They’ll do good work’: in JD Vance’s hometown, Trump is already the winner

The thinking offers a window into how the Trump campaign intends to deploy Vance over the next four months and explains in part their confidence that the Biden campaign highlighting Vance’s prior attacks against Trump could ultimately play into their hands.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump announced Vance as his running mate on Monday at the Republican national convention after deciding against the two other leading candidates shortlisted for the vice-presidential pick, the Florida senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum.

A source close to Trump described the former president as vacillating on whom to pick until the very end, even more so than in 2016, when he ultimately settled on Mike Pence, who was seen as a candidate who could bring evangelical voters otherwise skeptical of Trump.

The other two candidates had problems: Rubio had the residency problem – Trump now lives in Florida, and so Rubio might have had to move to comply with rules that say the president and vice-president must be from different states – and Burgum was seen as lacking nationwide presence.

But Trump did not commit to a running mate choice even in private and was floating the pros and cons of each while on the flight to Milwaukee, a day before the Republican party’s nominating convention began, the source said.

Vance appears to have ultimately received the nod in large part because he gelled with Trump personally, had the endorsement of several key players who had Trump’s ear, and was comfortable sparring with critics on TV and on the debate stage back when he ran for the Senate, the source said.

Trump first met Vance in person at his Mar-a-Lago club in February 2021, shortly before Vance announced his bid to be the junior US senator from Ohio, and their encounter started with Trump bluntly saying Vance had said nasty things about him, according to a person close to Vance.

Vance, the author of the bestselling memoir about his troubled upbringing, Hillbilly Elegy, needed Trump’s endorsement in the race. In that moment, Vance decided to apologize and explained he had been misled by what he described as media lies.

The apology disarmed Trump. At the end of the meeting, Trump told Vance that the other candidates in his primary had begged for his endorsement. Vance told Trump he would not do that – and suggested Trump endorse him down the line if he thought he was running a good race.

Starting in that meeting in 2021, Vance also proved his loyalty to Trump – one factor that has remained crucial for the former president. Vance promised Trump he would not attack him in the media, a vow that has carried through to his recent appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Vance’s close relationship with Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, also appears to have been helpful. The younger Trump has endorsed Vance for months and made the case to his father, on Vance’s behalf.