Prepare your elegies now

Peter Thiel’s Yalie messenger boy J.D. Vance is facing a problem, in that his only constituency in Ohio remains the suckers he pandered to in 2016 rather than the would-be suckers he’s pandering to now:

Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance has pinned his Senate hopes on a personal transition. He wants Republican voters in Ohio to believe he’s now Donald Trump’s biggest ally, a stiff challenge for Vance, who was once a vocal critic of the former president. He’s running consistently behind Josh Mandel in the Republican primary, and a new polling memo suggests that he’s in real trouble with Trump’s biggest supporters. Politico reported on Monday that the memo, from Vance pollster Tony Fabrizio, says that the candidate “needs a course correction ASAP.”

Vance’s rivals in the race have made much of his Never Trump history. As a result, the memo says that Vance appears “ideologically misaligned” with the base he needs to win. More Republican primary voters “now see him as moderate or liberal (29 percent) than as a conservative (27 percent),” the memo says. The candidate also no longer has a net positive image. “The groups where Vance has improved are those we don’t want him doing better with: Trump disapprovers and moderate/liberals,” Fabrizio’s memo continues brutally.

And, remember, if you’re tempted to think that Vance’s opponents would be materially worse, remember that 1)he would be a 200-proof MAGA guy as a senator, and 2)never assume that the version of a cynical grifter who’s telling you what he thinks you want to hear is the “real” one.