Win or lose, JD Vance will be the new and improved Donald Trump in 30 days

With just 28 days until Election Day, I can’t predict who will win. But after last week’s vice-presidential debate, I predict Sen. JD Vance of Ohio will be the frontrunner for the 2028 GOP nomination.

Even if Democrats win the White House in November, Vance will instantly become the most sought-after headliner for GOP fundraisers ahead of the 2026 midterms. On Capitol Hill, the junior senator from Ohio will be a power player in the fight to pick a successor to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the top Republican in the Senate.

This is the payoff for Vance’s undeniably smooth performance during last week’s vice-presidential debate. He deftly sidestepped his extreme, out-of-the-mainstream positions on issues such as abortion, climate change and election fraud. He lied frequently. And he looked good doing it.

His success opens the door to the next version of the GOP after it stops being The Trump Party.

With the slick Vance in the lead, the GOP now has a pretty face and articulate voice to disguise its reliance on Trump’s ugly formula of lies, conspiracy theories and “America First” isolationism.

That Trump brew has stirred up non-college-educated voters, especially white men in small towns, who are filled with anxiety about the high-tech economy and angry about the rising numbers of non-whites in the country.

And with Vance as their leader, the Republican Party can execute Trump’s fear-based formula without critics pointing to Trump’s criminal record or his crass language about women, Mexicans, Blacks and political opponents.

Vance’s top rival to take charge of the party’s post-Trump future is Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor. She finished second in the GOP primaries with about 20 percent of the party supporting her.

Her ability to win a sizeable share of votes — even after it was clear that Trump had won the nomination — established her as a possible future party leader.

Her ability to attract right-of-center voters beyond the Trump base is her biggest political advantage over Vance.

And she can claim that, unlike Trump and Vance, she is keeping the flame alive for conservative traditions going back to Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush. Those brass-tacks policies across the years include fiscal responsibility, support for global allies and belief in constitutional limits on presidential power.  

Haley did bite her lip and endorse Trump, but he has not embraced her.

Their cool relationship is on display even as Democrats are reaching out to Haley’s supporters by highlighting support from former members of Congress with strong conservative credentials, notably former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

Meanwhile, Vance is unabashed in kowtowing to far-right millionaires, including Trump. Democrats pushed internet memes shaming him for supposedly wearing eyeliner. A Morning Consult poll before the debate had nearly half the country, 48 percent, with an unfavorable view of Vance.

But in the debate, he smiled and presented himself as someone other than a captive of the far-right. There was no deep dive into made-up stories about immigrants eating pets, no denigrating single women without children as “childless cat ladies.” 

In a deft act of evasion during the debate, he spoke in favor of tolerance of different views before claiming he didn’t support a national ban on abortion. But that is a lie. He is on tape in a January 2022 interview with the “Very Fine People” podcast, saying: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” 

His lying hit another rough spot in the debate when he refused to admit that his running mate, Trump, had lost the 2020 election. Vance again engaged in a debate ploy, spinning away from the subject with the claim he is “looking to the future,” not wanting to relitigate the past.

His debate rival, Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz, called him out for evading the issue with a “damning non-answer.”

As Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest court filing in federal court last week illustrated in painful detail, even Trump privately admitted that his claims of election fraud after the 2020 election were lies. 

Vance and Trump see the trashing of constitutional limits, lies, and mockery as legitimate plays to gain and hold political power. To them, the nastiness isn’t a bug. It is a feature of their brand of politics.

Watch Vance — history shows that young vice-presidential candidates, even those on losing tickets, personify the next generation of political movements.

Mitt Romney’s 2012 running mate, Paul Ryan, went on to become Speaker of the House, overseeing a regressive tax cut benefitting corporations and the wealthy while adding a trillion dollars to the deficit.

Similarly, John McCain’s 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin, became a galvanizing force for the Tea Party movement, which fought Obama’s health care reform.

And President Barack Obama’s running mate became president.

As a vice president, Biden helped Obama, a Black man, reassure white voters that he was a centrist with no racial agenda. Biden later won those white moderates for himself in defeating Trump in 2020.

Now, Biden’s vice president is running. Kamala Harris is in a tight race against Trump, holding a lead within the margin of error in most polls.

Win or lose in November, Vance has become the new and improved Trump.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.