Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. And neither is the selection of J.D. Vance as its vice presidential candidate. (Dem oppo folks are doing well.)
Let’s first dive into the numbers, from the CNN, NPR-PBS-Marist College, Reuters-Ipsos, Quinnipiac University and Economist-YouGov polls:
- Vance’s best numbers are in the Marist poll (31 percent favorable versus 33 percent unfavorable). But in every other poll, he’s between six and nine points underwater.
- Vance appears to struggle with independent voters. In four of the five polls, his unfavorable rating with them is double digits higher than his favorable rating. (The fifth poll shows him eight points underwater.)
- He doesn’t appear to have improved his image in recent days. The Reuters-Ipsos poll showed him going from six points negative last week to seven points negative today. CNN showed him going from seven points negative last month to six points negative now. In both cases, many more voters have rendered judgments on him than before, but those reviews haven’t been positive.
The “childless cat ladies” of the internet aren’t letting Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, forget a past interview.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox in July 2021, Vance said the U.S. was being run by “childless cat ladies” who “force their misery on the rest of the country” and have no direct stake in the government because they don’t have kids.
Vance, who has three children, referred to Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg by name.
The interview resurfaced in the wake of Harris’ rise as the potential new democratic candidate for president after current president, Joe Biden, withdrew from the race.
Now, people who do not, or can not, have children are calling attention to the interview on social media.
Patrick Marley at WP:
A year before J.D. Vance was elected to the Senate, he advocated for a novel way to enhance the political strength of families — by giving parents the ability to cast tens of millions of additional votes on behalf of their children.Laura Field at Politico:
Vance, now the Republican nominee for vice president, in a 2021 speech called for encouraging Americans to have more babies and allowing them to more fully advocate for their children.
“When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power,” he told the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute. “You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality. If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”
Vance is staunchly opposed to abortion, and has suggested that it is wrong even in cases of rape and incest. He has compared the evil of abortion to that of slavery, and opposed the Ohio ballot measure ensuring the right to abortion in 2023. He also was one of only 28 members of Congress who opposed a new HIPAA rule that would limit law enforcement’s access to women’s medical records. He has promoted Viktor Orban’s pro-natalist policies in Hungary, which offer paybacks to married couples that scale up along with the number of children (a new Hungarian Constitution that banned gay marriage went into effect in 2012, so these benefits only serve “traditional” couples). Vance opposes same-sex marriage. During his 2022 Senate campaign, he suggested the sexual revolution had made divorce too easy (people nowadays “shift spouses like they change their underwear”), arguing that people in unhappy marriages, and maybe even those in violent ones, should stay together for their children. His campaign said such an insinuation was “preposterous,” but you can watch the video yourself and be the judge.
