Vice-presidential nominees typically receive a ratings bump after their party's convention, but Sen. JD Vance is bucking the tradition.
On the heels of last week's Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator is the least-liked vice-presidential candidate since 1980, CNN found in a polling analysis. It noted the data applied to nonincumbents.
Since 2000, vice-presidential nominees typically have had a net-positive rating immediately following the convention, at plus 19 points. Vance, however, is polling at minus 6 points just one week after accepting the vice-presidential nomination and officially embarking on the campaign trail, the network found.
The freshman lawmaker's lower-than-normal approval ratings are not an anomaly, as Vance has long polled behind other Republicans.
Vance heavily underperformed in his 2022 Ohio Senate race, at least compared with how other Republicans performed in the state that year. Vance defeated his opponent, then-Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, by only 6 percentage points. In comparison, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine crushed his Democratic opponent, former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, by 25 percentage points in that same cycle.
"The JD Vance pick makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective," Harry Enten, a CNN political-data reporter, said.
Vice President Kamala Harris' team sent out a press release gloating about the numbers.
"We'd like to be the first to congratulate JD Vance on making history as the least popular VP pick, well…ever," it said.
The press release went on to list some of Vance's policies, with the first one being his previous support for a nationwide abortion ban.
The Atlantic's Tim Alberta tweeted Monday that ever since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee, some members of Trumpworld have questioned whether Vance remains a wise running mate. President Donald Trump faltered with suburban voters in 2020, and Vance's selection was widely seen as an appeal to base voters instead of one geared toward attracting more swing voters.
Trump's campaign spent months perfecting its attacks against Biden and has now had to shift its messaging, as Harris poses a different electoral threat from her predecessor. While Biden was struggling to rally young voters and minority voters around his reelection campaign, Harris is more popular with those groups and presents a major upside for Democrats, as they need a high Gen Z and millennial turnout to remain competitive in the key battleground states.
There's also evidence that Republicans will closely monitor polling over the next two weeks beyond Vance's low likability ratings, as a Trump pollster said Harris could get a numbers bump following her expected ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.
