Polling reveals poor favorability ratings for Trump VP pick JD Vance

By 
 July 25, 2024

On the first day of last week's Republican National Convention, former President Donald Trump announced his pick of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate and vice presidential nominee.

Since that announcement, however, it has been revealed that Vance is the least-liked and worst-polling non-incumbent VP pick in more than four decades, according to Newsweek.

In fact, numbers show that the Ohio senator is the first non-incumbent VP nominee since 1980 to have a net-negative favorability rating.

Vance's net-negative favorability rating

It was CNN's senior data analyst Harry Enten who shared the bad news about Sen. Vance's apparent lack of popularity among the general public during a segment on Tuesday with host Erin Burnett.

"Frankly, I don't really understand the pick, and apparently neither do the American voters," Enten said of what Vance brings to the Trump campaign in comparison with his less-than-stellar favorability ratings.

"It's in negative net territory, negative -- look at that -- negative. I have gone all the way back since 1980. He is the first guy, immediately following a convention -- a VP pick -- who actually has a net-negative favorable rating. That is under water. The average since 2000 is +19 points," the analyst explained. "J.D. Vance, making history in the completely wrong way."

Enten went on to suggest that Vance's unpopularity risked "dragging Trump down" and bolstered that argument by pointing out how Vance won his Senate race overall in 2022 and among white working-class voters by smaller margins than either Trump won the state in 2020 or Gov. Mike DeWine won re-election in 2022.

Other polls reveal Vance's lack of popularity

CNN's Enten is not alone in pointing out how poorly Sen. Vance has polled, as Forbes similarly reported on a handful of recent surveys conducted after the VP pick was announced that also revealed the senator's low favorability ratings.

However, it was also acknowledged that, in comparison to polls conducted before Vance got the nod from Trump, both his favorable and unfavorable numbers had increased while the numbers of those who were unfamiliar or had no opinion had decreased.

Furthermore, there was also some admitted partisan skewing of those figures overall, as Vance performs generally well among Republicans but is viewed with disdain by Democrats.

Could Trump replace Vance as his VP pick?

Business Insider reported on the rumors that former President Trump has now had second thoughts about his choice of running mate and observed that while it would be possible to swap out his VP pick, doing so would be virtually unprecedented in the modern era and would need to be done quickly to stay ahead of ballot access and printing deadlines.

Newsweek noted that Trump's campaign has denied those reported rumors, as spokesman Steven Cheung told the outlet, "President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House."

"And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either non-existent sources or individuals who have no idea what's going on," he added. "Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy."

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