“He’s someone who takes really extreme positions,” a Democratic source told NBC News, “and we’ve seen time and time again that that’s not a winning policy.”
Since being tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance has come under fire for his role in Project 2025, a controversial initiative by the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to the Trump campaign.
“I’ve reviewed a lot of it, and there are some good ideas in there,” Vance said in an interview with Newsmax on July 10, but added that there were some points he didn’t agree with. Virginia, where Vance will be rallying on Monday, hasn’t elected a Republican for president since George W. Bush in 2004, but Republicans view the state as a “stakeholder” in this election.
To counter that, Democrats plan to tour the area around Radford University outside Roanoke on Monday with mobile billboards featuring news reports about Trump and Vance’s changing views on abortion, in an effort to make reproductive rights, one of the biggest issues this election cycle, a top priority for voters in the area.
One of the DNC’s focuses will be comments Vance made while campaigning for Ohio Senate in 2021, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, in which he said in a local news interview that he didn’t think “two wrongs make a right” when it came to whether to include rape and incest exceptions in abortion law.
“At the end of the day, we’re talking about unborn babies. What kind of society do we want?” Vance told Spectrum News in Columbus, Ohio. “A society that sees unborn babies as an inconvenience that should be thrown away?”
During an interview on “Meet the Press” earlier this month, Vance shifted his tone to align with Trump on the abortion drug mifepristone.
“The Supreme Court has ruled that the American people should have access to that drug,” Vance told host Kristen Welker. “Donald Trump has supported that position, and I support that position.”
Abortion has not been a successful theme for Republicans in Virginia. In 2023, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin failed to convince Virginia voters that a 15-week abortion ban was a “consensus.” The policy proposal helped Democrats flip the state’s House of Representatives and retain control of the state Senate.
“This year, Virginians will choose the Democratic Party’s vision for the nation over the anti-freedom, anti-women’s future of Trump-Vance, and we are working everywhere to win, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block,” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Adi Toevs said in a statement to NBC News.
