Is J.D. Vance pro-business? Trump’s VP pick is hard to pin down
Good morning.
J.D. Vance is a millennial, a populist, a bestselling author, a former Marine-turned-venture capitalist, a senator and now Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick. In choosing the 39-year-old Republican from Ohio as his running mate, Trump also picked a successor who echoes his views and MAGA stance. It’s a sign of Trump’s growing confidence that he chose a VP who isn’t from a critical swing state, instead picking a contender whose message resonates with white working-class voters.
While Vance has consistently called for a “reindustrialization” of America, he can be a tough man to pin down on how to do it. On worker pay, for example, he has called for “upward pressure on wages” and “downward pressure on services” to create efficiencies. But he opposes government intervention in making it easier to work, calling universal daycare “a class war against normal people.” (He also opposes abortion and some LGBTQ+ rights.) As Service Employees International Union President April Verrett argued last night, “Vance may portray himself as a working class hero, but his record tells another story.” Others might disagree.
As a VC, Vance worked alongside tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Steve Case. But he’s also been a critic of Big Tech and has taken tough stances on immigration and antitrust enforcement that goes against the zeitgeist in Silicon Valley. He’s called for a lower dollar, higher taxes on corporate mergers, and more tariffs.
Vance’s most important role right now is to support Trump. Having already said that he would have challenged the results of the 2020 election, Vance has his boss’s back.
With more money now pouring into Trump’s coffers since Saturday’s assassination attempt—Elon Musk plans to donate $45 million monthly until the election—attention will naturally shift to the man who’s topping the GOP ticket.
The pressure for business leaders will be to pay attention to the issues while staying neutral on the politics. In a new survey out this morning from the Weber Shandwick Collective, 61% of U.S. adults said they are worried that the election will get violent, and 59% fear the election will undermine American democracy and rule of law.
About 69% of both consumers and employees agree that American businesses must take a stand to protect democracy—with 80% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic and 62% of Republicans and those leaning that way taking that stance. Americans want business to take a stand while remaining neutral. Maybe they know that long periods of violence are bad for the markets. Maybe they want to look at the issues and consider the candidates themselves.
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
