{"id":224030,"date":"2026-09-13T10:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/jd-vance-pitches-himself-as-trumps-political-heir-on-day-two-of-republican-midterm-convention-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T10:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:38:21","slug":"jd-vance-pitches-himself-as-trumps-political-heir-on-day-two-of-republican-midterm-convention-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/jd-vance-pitches-himself-as-trumps-political-heir-on-day-two-of-republican-midterm-convention-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance pitches himself as Trump\u2019s political heir on day two of Republican midterm convention – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vice-president dog-whistled, exaggerated claims of success and echoed Trump talking points to excited audience
JD Vance made a clear pitch that he should be the heir to Donald Trump<\/a> on Thursday night, closing out the Republicans<\/a>\u2019 midterm convention with a blistering speech that featured exaggerated claims of success, criticism of Democrats<\/a> as \u201clunatics\u201d and an aggressive dismissal of a protester waving a Mexican flag.
Speaking in Dallas<\/a>, the vice-president showed he could channel the basest instincts of his boss, filling his remarks with dog whistles and echoing Trump\u2019s false claims that Democrats \u201ccheered\u201d the 7 October massacre of Israelis.
Vance had been met with chants of \u201cJD, JD,\u201d as he walked on to the stage: the liveliest response anyone besides Trump received across the two-day convention, with some shouting that he should be the nominee in 2028.
\u201cWe gotta take care of business this November, then we\u2019ll worry about what comes next,\u201d the vice-president responded with a smile.
Vance began the speech by running through a list of Republican grievances, channeling Trump\u2019s pugnacious attitude toward immigration as he told the crowd that two years ago \u201cwe were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous\u201d.
The Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd inside the arena liked that line, but the loudest cheer of the night came when Vance responded to a protester who briefly interrupted his speech. Vance claimed the protester was waving a Mexican flag, and adopted a fiery tone as he said: \u201cWell, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there \u2013 I\u2019ll buy you the plane ticket.\u201d
The applause was rapturous.
The vice-president had to walk a tightrope coming into the speech, arguably the most important address of his short political career. He had to present his own case to the Republican base, without breaking too much from the notoriously sensitive Trump.
Vance praised Trump as \u201cthe toughest SOB in American politics\u201d, and paused repeatedly as the crowd lavished him with cheers and applause.
He also invoked the recent birth of a fourth child, saying he had been looking at \u201cthe future of this country through the eyes of the future of my son\u201d and \u201cthe birthright of this newest of Americans\u201d.
Addressing Democratic \u201cradicals\u201d, whom he accused of wanting to destroy the nuclear American family, he boomed: \u201cStay the hell away from our kids.\u201d
But it was also a speech aimed squarely at rallying the Maga faithful: attacking transgender rights, extolling the importance of American manufacturing and religious freedom, and accusing Democrats of \u201cdoubling down on the crazy\u201d.
Vance showed a penchant, too, for Trump\u2019s baseless statements, claiming that some Democrats in New York \u201ccheered on\u201d the slaughter of Jewish people on 7 October, and suggesting that a \u201cnew generation\u201d of Democrats seek to defund the police and \u201cabolish the border\u201d.
\u201cWhat is it that drives this new generation of radical Democrats? It\u2019s not new policies. They\u2019ll say the same stuff: defund the police, abolish the border, the green new scam. We\u2019ve heard all this stuff before,\u201d Vance said. He then tried out a new line: \u201cI think that what\u2019s new about them is what motivates them is a new type of hardcore hatred.\u201d
Vance won applause, too, for his praise of Charlie Kirk, the far-right activist<\/a> who was assassinated in Utah exactly one year ago. Addressing Kirk\u2019s children, who were not in the arena, Vance said: \u201cHistory will record that your father was a great man.
\u201cThose of us who loved your dad, we know him as something even better than a great man \u2013 he was a good man,\u201d he added of Kirk, a man who<\/a>, among other things, endorsed Trump\u2019s stolen-election lies and the racist great replacement theory.
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One problem Vance could face should he run in 2028 is his attachment to the deeply unpopular Iran war, and foreign policy was conspicuous by its absence in his speech. Last week he rejected<\/a> the use of the word \u201cwar\u201d, but said he wouldn\u2019t set \u201cartificial lines\u201d regarding an end to the conflict. The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> on Wednesday that Trump\u2019s advisers have raised the prospect that the war could drag on through the rest of his term.
Vance did not address the war directly. But in an oblique reference he invoked Kirk\u2019s disdain for conflict.
\u201cCharlie hated war,\u201d Vance said, before pleading with undecided voters to not abandon the party over policy differences.
\u201cWhat I\u2019m asking you to do is do what Charlie did: do not throw the baby out with the bathwater,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.\u201d
A poll<\/a> found Vance was the favorite choice among likely Republican primary voters, with 43% saying they wanted him to be the nominee in 2028. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, got 21%; Donald Trump Jr was at 7%.
Vance will hope those numbers stick, but he wasn\u2019t the only one auditioning in Dallas. Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, the health secretary who switched parties to support Trump in 2024, praised the president and attacked the Democratic party during a well-received speech earlier on Thursday, while Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, received a rousing response in his home state.
\u201cThey hate Christians, they hate Jews, they hate the \u200ccapitalism, they hate \u2060the constitution and they hate America,\u201d Cruz said of Democrats, offering no evidence for his claims, but very much tapping into the theme of the two-day convention.
Rubio did not speak at the convention, instead taking part in a tour of South America. Both he and Cruz ran against Trump in 2016. During that contest, Trump dubbed Rubio \u201cLittle Marco\u201d and suggested Cruz\u2019s father was involved<\/a> in the assassination of John F Kennedy.
Vance, by contrast, has never publicly attracted Trump\u2019s ire, and he will want to keep it that way as he seeks to take on leadership of the party in two years\u2019 time. That was probably the thinking as the vice-president ended his speech, shouting over jubilant applause that Trump was the \u201cgreatest president\u201d before relinquishing the stage for his boss to bring the convention to a close.<\/p>\n

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Vice-president dog-whistled, exaggerated claims of success and echoed Trump talking points to excited audienceJD Vance made a clear pitch that he should be the heir to Donald Trump on Thursday night, closing out the Republicans\u2019 midterm convention with a blistering speech that featured exaggerated claims of success, criticism of Democrats as \u201clunatics\u201d and an aggressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}