JD Vance chooses dramatic words. A future under Kamala Harris would be “hell,” shouts the Republican vice presidential candidate from a stage in the US state of Nevada. Harris’s previous record is a “disaster” and the fact that she is now running in the presidential race instead of Joe Biden is nothing less than a “coup.” That’s his job: Donald Trump brought Vance to his side as a man for tough attacks on political opponents – and actually also as a link to the working class. But since his nomination as Trump’s vice president, the Republican himself has offered a surprising amount of scope for attack.

The attack on childless people

Vance is currently being caught up in all sorts of statements from the past. The climax so far: sexist statements about childless people. In an interview in 2021, the father of three described leading Democratic politicians – including Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now running for the White House herself – as “childless cat women” who are unhappy with their lives. The clip from that time resurfaced after his rise to become Trump’s vice president, spread rapidly and brought him a lot of criticism.

It was not Vance’s only statement in this direction. He has expressed his position that childless people should have less say in a democracy in various ways, even claiming that people without children tend to be “disturbed” and “psychotic”. His most recent attempt to defend these comments did not end the debate. Many women – an important voting group among whom Trump has recently lost support anyway – do not particularly like criticism of childlessness. Such accusations are unlikely to go down well with men without children either.

The laughing stock

Things have not gone well for the senator from Ohio in his first weeks as Trump’s vice president since mid-July. He is struggling with poor poll ratings and the fact that many Americans have never heard of him. Most recently, a raunchy joke about Vance caused such a furore on social media that it made national headlines despite its lack of substance. The internet can be merciless.

Trump, who himself loves to provoke, is unlikely to be bothered per se if his vice president makes a name for himself with controversial statements. But alienating important groups of voters cannot be in Trump’s interest. And if the man at his side becomes a public laughing stock, Trump will be even more displeased. The Republican presidential candidate is already being asked whether he is still happy with his vice-choice and feels compelled to publicly defend his partner over the childless comments: Vance simply loves families.

The lack of experience

Trump had decided on Vance before his Democratic opponent Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Vance is half Trump’s age (78) – and in a campaign that initially focused primarily on Biden’s advanced age and mental deficits, such a young vice president seemed for a moment to serve as a sign of dynamism and agility. But now Biden is out of the election campaign – and Vance’s “youth” is becoming more of a problem.

The Republican has only been in the Senate since January 2023. He has no experience in government, nor any long political past. Harris’ campaign is systematically using this for its own purposes. Vance is “one of the least prepared” candidates for the office of vice president that the country has ever seen, says Mitch Landrieu, a member of Harris’ campaign team. “He hasn’t even run a company. He has never run anything.” And now it could happen that Vance would have to lead the USA in one fell swoop if Trump wins the election and then something happens to him, warns Landrieu.

This is exactly the argument Trump has used against Harris in recent months: that Biden is in danger of changing his mind at any time and that she would then take over. However, the 59-year-old has far more experience than Vance: she was district attorney of San Francisco, later attorney general of California for six years, then a senator in the US Congress for four years before becoming the first woman to hold the office of vice president.

But not so close to the working class

Another problem: Trump explicitly chose Vance as someone who would secure him the votes of the working class in particularly hotly contested states, such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Vance comes from a working-class family, grew up in Ohio in unstable conditions and was raised by his grandmother. After graduating from school, he joined the military and served in Iraq. His memoirs about that time, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a success.

Later, however, Vance took a completely different path: with a law degree from the elite Yale University, a job as a venture capitalist, including in Silicon Valley in California, and finally a move to the Senate – with the campaign support of a tech billionaire. All of this is far removed from the reality of life for low-income Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. This is also the argument of Harris’ campaign and her Democratic supporters.

A strange relationship with Trump

The fact that Vance was a harsh critic of Trump years ago (“I never liked him” – “My God, what an idiot”) doesn’t exactly help him either. When asked about this in 2022 during his election campaign for the Senate, in which he needed and openly courted Trump’s supporters, Vance said: “We all say stupid things. And I say stupid things very publicly.” Trump insisted on humiliating his party colleague for the change of direction on the open stage. At a joint appearance with Vance in Ohio that year, Trump said: “JD kisses my ass because he wants my support so much.”

The turnaround in his relationship with Trump continues to haunt Vance to this day and currently does not look good in either direction: Democrats portray him as a spineless opportunist, while die-hard Trump supporters can accuse him of lacking conviction and of not having been part of the “movement” from the beginning.

Democrats are now publicly raising the question of whether Trump could possibly change his tack and replace his running mate. According to experts, this would not be easy logistically and technically. But it is possible.