WASHINGTON – JD Vance has a lot riding on next November's midterm elections.
The vice president is seen as the front-runner to be the next Republican nominee for the White House, yet he faces the more immediate challenge of being one of his party's leading messengers as the GOP tries to hold its six-seat majority in the House of Representatives.
For Republicans to be successful, Vance is warning endangered lawmakers that they need to motivate the working-class voters who helped President Donald Trump take back the White House and don't typically show up in non-presidential elections. That challenge was reflected in Republicans' poor showing in the recent Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, which Democrats won by wider margins than their 2020 presidential victories in those same states.
"I think that's one of the lessons that we learned in Virginia and New Jersey ‒ is that when Donald Trump is not on the ballot, you've got to give people something to actually believe in, something to be inspired by, to get out there and vote,” Vance said during a recent event with Breitbart News. “They're not going to vote just because you have an R next to your name.”
Republican victories nationwide would be a useful springboard for Vance's expected White House campaign, which he has said he will discuss with Trump after the midterm elections.
