共和党人和民主党人都同意:俄亥俄州参议员万斯(JD Vance)作为前总统唐纳德特朗普(Donald Trump)的竞选伙伴，经历了一段艰难的历程。不太清楚的是这对选民有多重要。
自从万斯被选入特朗普的共和党候选人名单，他就受到了一连串关于过去关于无子女妇女的评论、严格的堕胎立场、对警察的厌恶等等。点滴滴给了民主党人一个机会将万斯和共和党人视为“怪人”这句话已经成为副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯传达信息的基石。
然而，虽然这些言论正在推动一个漫长的新闻周期，但万斯正在进行一个循环，他的竞选伙伴是一位以吸取政治氧气而闻名的前总统，他的民主党对手将由一位可能的提名人挑选，她本人在一系列前所未有的事件中被选为她的政党的候选人。
“这很难说，”一位接近特朗普竞选团队的消息人士在被问及选民会有多关心万斯的介绍时说。“我不知道副总统候选人是否曾经是为什么有人投票给校长的驱动因素。所以，这是有待确定的。”
传统观点认为，尽管每位总统候选人为挑选合适的人选做了大量的计算，但竞选伙伴在总统竞选中从来不会影响选民。最近一次选秀权威胁到一张票是在2008年，当时的阿拉斯加州共和党州长萨拉·佩林发现自己作为约翰·麦凯恩的竞选伙伴陷入了困境，尽管他们两人也在即将离任的总统乔治·w·布什的民调数字糟糕的时候竞选。
万斯被选中了在几名竞争者中进行了为期一周的搜索后，媒体和大部分共和党人都在悬念谁将加入特朗普的共和党候选人名单。
这位俄亥俄州参议员在共和党大会的第一天被大张旗鼓地提名为候选人，在会谈结束后，他过去的评论立即成为头条新闻，其中许多评论都集中在他对没有孩子的女性的评论上，包括在2021年说这个国家正由“一群没有孩子的猫女士管理，她们对自己的生活和自己做出的选择感到痛苦。”
这场争论促使万斯进行辩护，认为“媒体想攻击我”，记者们太专注于“讽刺”
但共和党人认为，归根结底，这仍然是特朗普的表演，对共和党候选人的支持可能取决于他的吸引力。
“一般来说，副总统候选人通常不太重要，特别是当你有一个像特朗普这样的共和党候选人时，他是避雷针，是偶像。很多选民会投票给特朗普。共和党民调专家罗伯特·暴雪(Robert Blizzard)表示:“我只是不太相信有人会成为特朗普的选民，但现在会因为JD Vance的选择而击败特朗普。”。
共和党人将特朗普过去言论的头条新闻比作棒球内幕，而不是竞选地震。
“他们称他为怪人，这是首次亮相。只是民意调查，棒球之类的。当他们发现这不起作用时，竞选活动将继续进行，”另一位接近特朗普竞选团队的消息人士表示，他认为万斯将保持对铁锈地带选民的吸引力，因为他在该地区有根基。
特朗普本人周三在全国黑人记者协会会议上说"你有两三天的时间会有很多骚动…然后就平息了。"
这位前总统的评论在周四似乎特别有先见之明，当时新闻周期主要是他在NABJ采访哈里斯的种族时的提问，而不是万斯关于无子女妇女的评论。
除此之外，关于万斯的头条新闻正在与关于民主党候选人的新闻报道竞争。
民主党人陷入了他们自己的旋风中，哈里斯在竞选中遥遥领先在乔·拜登总统结束自己的竞选后。她将很快选择自己的竞选伙伴，这可能会引发一个全新的新闻周期。
这是其他国家讨论的重点，包括最近对特朗普的暗杀企图.
“这只是一个如此混乱，动荡的时期，我不确定许多选民是否真的关注它，”暴雪说。
除了一连串的故事之外，万斯仍然能够在竞选中筹集资金和推销活动，他的小说《乡下人的悲歌》和一部根据该小说改编的电影的印刷版本越来越受欢迎，这表明一些选民也在消化对他的更积极的描述。
通过这一切，万斯预计将得到特朗普竞选团队的全力支持。
特朗普竞选发言人卡罗琳·莱维特在一份声明中说:“特朗普总统对他选择万斯参议员作为竞选伙伴感到兴奋，他们是夺回白宫的完美团队。”
这并不一定意味着万斯在国家队的介绍是顺利的。
甚至那些接近特朗普竞选团队的人也承认，万斯的首次亮相并不理想538次平均投票衡量万斯的受欢迎程度发现，这位俄亥俄州共和党人的不支持率接近38%，而他的支持率比这低6个百分点，为32%。
“从统计数据来看，这是过去100年来最糟糕的一次亮相，”第一位接近特朗普竞选团队的消息人士表示。"这让莎拉·佩林看起来像一个f - Mensa的候选人."
这让民主党感觉到了一个机会。
举棋不定的选民人数不多，但很关键，目前还不清楚什么因素可以说服仍在观望的人——特别是如果每张选票上的两个人仍然不受欢迎的话。
“我认为，在政界工作的政界人士太轻视副总统人选的影响了。摇摆选民的信息极其贫乏，他们的观点往往非常矛盾。坦白地说，他们不会根据世界上第二重要的人物来决定他们将投票给谁的想法是荒谬的，”一位熟悉哈里斯竞选策略的消息人士说。
“政治专业人士和专家认为副总统人选的影响可能不会影响摇摆选民对他们将投票给谁的计算，他们需要关注一些摇摆选民的焦点群体。”
哈里斯的竞选团队及其盟友已经抓住了“怪异”的攻击线。这种语言在有线新闻的代理采访中占主导地位，万斯的评论也是新闻发布的焦点。
民主党人还表示，攻击线叠加到现有的“自由”信息上，包括堕胎和家庭为自己做决定的权利。
如果即将到来的民意调查显示攻击坚持，言论预计将成为竞选的主要内容。
“民主党人只需要继续保持沉默，并向他们举起一面镜子，”一位民主党民意测验专家说。哈里斯和她的竞选伙伴将会谈到民调显示什么对他们获得270张选举人票至关重要。
“我的建议是，继续向反对派研究人员支付报酬，”这位人士补充道。“因为在过去的10年里，他并不是只说了三件有争议的事情。”
JD Vance is having a rocky rollout. How much does it matter to voters?
Republicans and Democrats agree: Ohio Sen. JD Vance has had a rocky rollout as former President Donald Trump's running mate. What's less clear is how much it matters to voters.
Since Vance was picked to join Trump on Republicans' ticket, he's been hit with a cascade of stories aboutpast comments regarding childless women, stringent abortion stances, dislike of police and more. The drip, drip, drip has given Democrats an opening topeg Vance and Republicans at large as "weird,"phrasing that has become a cornerstone of Vice President Kamala Harris' messaging.
Yet while the remarks are driving a prolonged news cycle, Vance is running in a cycle when his running mate is a former president famous for sucking up political oxygen and his Democratic counterpart will be picked by a likely nominee who herself was chosen as her party's candidate in an unprecedented series of events.
"It's hard to say," one source close to Trump's campaign said when asked how much voters will care about Vance's introduction. "I don't know if a vice presidential candidate ever is the driver of why someone votes for the principal. And so, that is to be determined."
The conventional wisdom is that running mates historically don't move the needle with voters in presidential races despite the intense calculus equation done by each presidential candidate to pick the right person. The most recent time a pick threatened a ticket was in 2008, when then-Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin found herself in hot water as John McCain's running mate, though the two also ran at a time of terrible poll numbers for outgoing President George W. Bush.
Vance was pickedafter a weekslong search among several contenders, keeping both the media and much of the GOP in suspense as to who will join Trump on Republicans' ticket.
The Ohio senator was rolled out as the nominee the first day of the GOP convention to much fanfare, and after the confab ended, was immediately hit with headlines over his past comments, many of which focused on his remarks on women without kids, including saying in 2021 that the country was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made."
The controversy has pushed Vance to play defense, arguing that "the media wants to attack me" and that reporters are too focused on "sarcasm."
But at the end of the day, it's still the Trump show, Republicans argued, and support for the GOP ticket likely hinges on his appeal.
"Generally speaking, the vice presidential candidates don't typically matter too much, especially when you have a candidate on the Republican side like Trump, who is the lightning rod, is the icon. A lot of voters are going to be voting for Trump. I just don't buy much stock into somebody would have been a Trump voter and is now going to pull off of Trump because of the JD Vance pick," said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard.
Republicans likened the headlines over Trump's past comments as inside baseball rather than a campaign earthquake.
"They call him weird and all that stuff, this is rollout stuff. It's just inside pollster, baseball stuff. When they find out that's not working, the campaign will have moved on," said a second source close to Trump's campaign, arguing that Vance will maintain his appeal to voters in the Rust Belt given his roots in the region.
Trump himselfsaid on Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists conferencethat "you have two or three days where there's a lot of commotion … and then that dies down."
The former president's comments seemed particularly prescient Thursday, when the news cycle was dominated by his questioning during the NABJ interview of Harris' race -- rather than Vance's comments about childless women.
Beyond that, headlines about Vance are competing with news stories about the Democratic ticket.
Democrats are locked in a whirlwind of their own, with Harris jolting to the top of the ticketafter President Joe Biden ended his own campaign. She will soon pick her own running mate, which will likely set off a whole new news cycle.
And that's on top of other national discussions, including over therecent assassination attempt on Trump.
"It's just been such a chaotic, turbulent time period that I'm not sure many voters have really homed in and focused on it," Blizzard said.
In addition to the cavalcade of stories, Vance has still been able to raise money and sell out events on the campaign trail, and print copies of his novel "Hillbilly Elegy" and a movie based off of it have spiked in popularity, suggesting some voters are also digesting a more positive depiction of him.
And through it all, Vance is expected to have the full support of the Trump campaign.
"President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance to be his running mate, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House," Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
That doesn't necessarily mean Vance's introduction on the national ticket has been smooth.
Even those close to the Trump campaign admitted Vance's rollout hasn't been ideal, and a538 average of pollsgauging Vance's popularity found the Ohio Republican's disapproval rating at almost 38%, while his approval rating sat 6 points under that, at 32%.
"This has been, statistically speaking, the single worst rollout of the last 100 years," the first source close to the Trump campaign said. "It makes Sarah Palin look like a f------ Mensa candidate."
That has Democrats sensing an opening.
The universe of undecided voters is small but critical, and it's unclear what factors could persuade someone still on the fence -- particularly if the two people at the top of each ticket remain unpopular.
"Political people who work in politics, I think, are much too dismissive of the impact of a vice presidential pick. Swing voters are extremely low-information, they have often very contradictory views. The notion that they would not decide on who they're going to vote for based on the second-most important person in the world is, frankly, absurd," said one source familiar with the Harris campaign's strategy.
"Political professionals and pundits who dismiss the impact of a vice presidential pick as not possibly factoring into a swing voter's calculations for who they're gonna vote for need to watch some focus groups of swing voters."
Harris' campaign and its allies are already seizing on the "weird" attack lines. The language is dominating surrogate interviews on cable news, and Vance's comments are the frequent focus of press releases.
Democrats also said the line of attack layers onto existing messaging over "freedom," including on abortion and families' rights to make decisions for themselves.
And if upcoming polling showing the attack sticking, the rhetoric is expected to become a mainstay of the race.
"The Democrats just need to continue bottling up and holding up a mirror to them," one Democratic pollster said. "Harris and her running mate are going to be speaking about what the polling says is critical to get them to 270" Electoral College votes.
"Keep paying the opposition researchers, is what I would suggest," the person added. "Because it's not like he's only said three controversial things in the last 10 years."
