JD Vance’s time on the trail has often been overshadowed by self-made controversy

Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance has been an aggressive messenger for Donald Trump’s campaign vision for the future and is a constant fixture on the trail, doing interviews and taking questions from the press.

But in the 11 weeks since Vance joined the GOP presidential ticket, that message has been overshadowed by controversy — often of Vance’s own making.

His acceptance speech in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention was heavy on biography and nodded towards a more polished take on Trump’s often dire rhetoric.

“My friends, tonight is a night of hope,” he said. “A celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again. And it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren.”

Vance’s selection came at a moment when Trump was leading in key battleground polls after President Biden’s poor debate performance and the GOP was rallying around Trump after an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The freshman Ohio senator was viewed as the MAGA heir apparent to the party’s future.

But in the run-up to Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, there have been two conflicting forces at work on the trail: the message that Vance wants to get out, and what actually sticks.

Take his first solo campaign rally in his hometown, just days after the RNC, where he delivered a populist speech vowing to help lift up “forgotten communities all across our country.”

“We’re going to fight for every single worker in this country,” he said. “If you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to put a good dinner on the table and send your kids to whatever vacation and whatever school you want to.”

But another line that broke through to the public — and not for good reason — was a comment about Diet Mountain Dew.

“Democrats say that it is racist to believe — well, they say it’s racist to do anything,” he said. “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I’m sure they’re going to call that racist, too.”

Older comments have drawn blowback

In the days that followed, Trump struggled to quickly pivot his campaign message to address Vice President Harris after President Biden dropped out of the race, but Vance was quick to fill in the gaps to question her record and make her the focus of attacks on immigration, inflation and other top Republican issues.

When Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate and the pair embarked on a swing state blitz, Vance was there, too, countering the Democratic message with the case for a Republican presidency.

“It is normal people who suffer when Kamala Harris refuses to do her job, and it is normal people who stand to benefit the most when we re-elect Donald J. Trump president of the United States,” he said in Philadelphia.

But Vance’s rapid ascension in politics means he has relatively less experience as a campaigner, delivering stump speeches or handling the intense scrutiny on past and present statements.

So the prebuttal tour came as Vance was also dealing with uproar over old comments he made deriding Democrats in charge as quote “childless cat ladies.”

“It’s not a criticism of people who don’t have children,” Vance said in an interview with Megyn Kelly. “I explicitly said in my remarks despite the fact the media has lied about this that this is not about criticizing people who for various reasons didn’t have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

But the damage was done, as Vance’s old comments provided Democrats an opening to attack the GOP ticket as sexist and out of touch.

His false claims about migrants have caused controversy, too

Then, there’s more recent remarks, like a weeks-long inflammatory crusade against Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio that Vance has sought to use as a cudgel to attack Democrats over immigration.