Trump courts 'disaster' by not stopping 'uninspiring and goofy' Vance: analyst

Donald Trump has compounded his error in choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate by essentially handing off the campaign to the Republican senator, according to a new analysis.

The former president tapped the 40-year-old Vance before President Joe Biden exited the race and endorsed his own vice president, Kamala Harris, and The New Republic's Alex Shepard said the GOP candidate has been "the worst running mate in American political history."

"Vance was chosen under the assumption that they were headed toward a landslide victory and therefore it really wouldn’t matter, even by the standards of vice presidential picks," Shepard wrote. "Running against an 81-year-old incumbent who struggled to string two sentences together, Vance was probably a fine pick. Voters and the media weren’t really going to focus on him; Democrats had bigger problems to worry about. Vance would be fine."

However, running against the 59-year-old Harris and her 60-year-old running mate Tim Walz has forced the Republican ticket to engage in a real campaign, which has exposed Vance's weaknesses.

"He is a liability on several fronts: an inexperienced and off-putting politician with views that are far outside the mainstream," Shepard wrote. "If Trump still had juice, that likely wouldn’t matter in a tight election because he would be sucking all of the attention away. But Trump isn’t doing that this cycle in the same way — because he is old."

The 78-year-old Trump has held only one event this month, a rally over the weekend in deep-red Montana, and he doesn't plan to hit the campaign trail again until after Aug. 22, the final day of the Democratic National Convention. While he insists he's "leading by a lot," he is arguably losing.

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"He isn’t campaigning because he can’t," Shepard wrote. "The Trump we saw at Thursday’s press conference was more subdued and angrier. It took him longer to make a point. He jumbled names and made things up and lost his train of thought on several occasions. In other words, he lacks the fitness and stamina of the candidate who won as an underdog in 2016."

A good running mate should be able to pick up Trump's slack, but Vance has been a liability, Shepard wrote.

"He’s uninspiring and goofy," Shepard wrote. "His political program is wildly at odds even with that of many Republicans. As a stand-in, he emphasizes all of Trump’s most unappealing qualities. He can’t help but disparage people without children or make off-putting remarks."

"Because Trump is the center of Trumpism and its main engine and because he is, relatedly, a malignant narcissist, his movement lacks any real potential surrogates," the columnist added. "There are plenty of hangers-on and people who will happily say insane s--t as warm-up acts. But there aren’t actual stand-ins. Vance is going to become that as Trump stays off the trail. And it will likely be a disaster."