(Reuters)
WASHINGTON, Nov 7 – Late in his blitz to salvage Republicans’ midterm fortunes, Vice President JD Vance shifted strategy. He talked less about President Donald Trump and more about the issues that define his own political identity.
Vance argued the case for Republicans, who lost control of Congress in Tuesday’s vote, almost exclusively through the lens of his policy portfolio, according to a Reuters review of half a dozen speeches since the Republican convention in September.
He bypassed Trump’s signature policies including the Iran war and deportations as polls showed the president’s sagging popularity dragging down Republican office-seekers.
The change was deliberate, according to two people familiar with the strategy. Vance and his advisers saw the issues he championed — economic nationalism, foreign policy restraint, and public safety — as politically potent subjects he could address with authority. While Trump embraced them as part of his MAGA movement, Vance had emerged as their lead crusader, the people said.
The shift offered an early glimpse of how the 42-year-old vice president could chart his own course as Republicans begin looking beyond Trump.
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