Opinion | Trump and Musk Pull Focus. But Vance Is the One to Watch.

JD Vance may not command headlines like Donald Trump or even Elon Musk, but he is the man to watch if you care about the long game in politics.

His vice-presidential assignments seem carefully chosen to position him with an eye toward where America is heading — a strategy that was on full display with Mr. Vance’s remarks on American global leadership in A.I. this week in Paris. He turned heads with his forceful argument that we need to move beyond looking at A.I. as a threat to be managed — the posture taken by his predecessor, Kamala Harris — toward seeing it as an engine of opportunity.

Mr. Vance talks about tech like a guy who doesn’t need kids to help him reset his Wi-Fi password. That’s saying something for a political leader in our country, and is but one facet of what sets him apart from much of the Washington gerontocracy. His remarks in Paris were a sign that one of America’s political parties has a new generation of leadership that is focused on and fluent about issues that will shape our future and not just rehashing the political battles of the past.

If the 2024 presidential election was burdened by the weight of old men fighting for their respective legacies, Mr. Trump did something actually refreshing when he chose the first millennial running mate. As a pollster, I’ve seen voters’ desire for fresh energy and ideas come from a worry that our politics are stagnant and stuck on the status quo.

Which is why I was struck this week when Mr. Trump was asked directly if he viewed Mr. Vance as his successor for 2028, and replied that he did not. He praised Mr. Vance for doing a “fantastic job” but said, in his view, it was “too early” to anoint him as the next Republican nominee.

While it is understandable that Mr. Trump is focused on the here and now, not what comes after his presidency, it is hardly too early to see the obvious. Mr. Vance is the natural inheritor of the movement Mr. Trump has built, with a keen grasp on what binds many of Mr. Trump’s supporters — especially his younger supporters — to him, both in style and in substance.

A decade ago, after back-to-back elections in which Republicans got blown out among young voters, I wrote a book about the party’s problem reaching millennials. I called on Republicans to show up for my generation in the new places where we got information, to care about being culturally relevant, and to connect on forward-looking issues young people actually care about.

Finally, after years of struggling to appeal to younger voters, the Republican Party led by the Trump-Vance ticket nearly fought the Democrats to a draw with voters under age 30. I confess that 10 years ago I never would have guessed that it would be the re-election of Donald Trump bringing all this to fruition. Even as many young Americans still depart sharply from the G.O.P. on many issues, the improvements Republicans have made with younger voters are undeniable in the polling data I see. Cheered at sporting events, omnipresent on the podcast circuit, embraced by tech luminaries and conversant in topics like crypto, Republicans say they feel “cool” for the first time in a long time.

While the pendulum may yet swing again, as it has before, the Republican Party of yesteryear is not coming back. There is only forward, and there is only onward to what’s next, and Mr. Vance seems clearly to be what is next for Republicans. As a younger American who also happens to be vice president, Mr. Vance has been able to fuse parts of Mr. Trump’s stylistic approach and policy agenda with a sense of the future that is likely to have appeal and staying power with the next generation of Republican voters.

Start with the style: Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance exude an unapologetic combativeness that Republicans love. Generation Z has grown up in the era of politics as internet knife-fighting, a skill Mr. Vance has honed and displays on podcasts, social media and other platforms where younger voters get their news.

But even in the realm of traditional media, Mr. Vance relishes going into hostile territory, making offline content that catches fire online. For instance, CBS News’s Margaret Brennan challenged Mr. Vance in a recent interview over the threat or lack thereof posed by Afghan refugees, to which Mr. Vance replied, “I don’t really care, Margaret, I don’t want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.” The line sparked a thousand “I don’t really care, Margaret” memes, giving voice to younger conservatives’ frustration over feeling scolded for their views. His debate performance against Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota did much the same, giving Republicans a taste of what is possible when Trumpian views are channeled through a messenger with far greater focus.

But there’s also something for those who find less appeal in the political warfare. Mr. Vance’s journey from a turbulent childhood to an elite law school, writing a moving best-selling memoir, and rising rapidly through the political ranks at a young age is a path Americans have embraced before. Mr. Vance’s lovely family, with its warmth and normalcy, his small children descending from Air Force Two in peacoats and pajama pants, provides something others raising little ones can find relatable, even if they vehemently disagree with Mr. Vance’s policies or pugnaciousness.

Then there’s the substance, a conservatism with an ear for populism, focused on the issues of the future. Mr. Vance’s time working in the tech industry gives him greater fluency about issues that will define younger Americans’ lifetimes, from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency and beyond.

Mr. Vance also has carved out a position on American engagement around the world, one much more skeptical of the value of sending American blood and treasure abroad, that aligns more closely with where younger Republicans — as well as other young Americans — stand on foreign policy. Mr. Vance’s populist economic rhetoric aligns with a generation that has never been strongly persuaded of the virtues of free and unfettered capitalism, that takes workers’ rights seriously, that looks skeptically at elites of all kinds.

Some Democrats may relish the idea of going up against Mr. Vance in 2028. He has embraced the parts of the Trumpian agenda that make other Republican leaders blanch. It isn’t yet clear if Mr. Vance will get the same pass from voters as Mr. Trump seems to when it comes to statements that offend, like his much-discussed “childless cat ladies” remarks. But so far, whenever Mr. Vance has been slammed as irresponsible by his critics, it has shown no sign of making Republicans waver. His standing among Republican voters remains strong, with 85 percent of them holding a favorable view of him. Notably, his favorables are almost equally strong for those who think of themselves as “Trump-first” Republicans as for those who think of themselves as “party-first” Republicans.

A Trump presidency would have been completely unbelievable to me when I wrote my book about the G.O.P. and younger voters, so I approach political prediction with humility. Republicans do not have a robust modern record of vice presidents becoming their party’s presidential nominee — just ask Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney and Mike Pence. And those working under Mr. Trump do not always emerge from the experience unscathed. Four years is an eternity in politics, and if America ultimately concludes that the Trump-Vance administration was a failure, the Republican Party could look to turn the page.

But so far a good many voters like the direction this administration is going in, and Mr. Vance is finding his own moments, as at the A.I. conference, to show how he’s different from our recent generation of presidents. Mr. Trump may think it’s too soon to anoint successors, but he finds himself with a vice president who is better aligned with the spirit of what he is trying to achieve than virtually any other Republican.

Mr. Vance has displayed much of what Mr. Trump’s core supporters love today — a thirst for combat, an indifference to criticism, a populist posture — with a clear ability to evolve into what the Republican Party will want after Mr. Trump leaves the stage.

Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer, is a Republican pollster and the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”

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