Some Republicans express buyer's remorse over Vance VP pick

• Vance's nomination at the GOP convention came at the peak of the party's confidence about the 2024 election, which polls suggested was shaping up to be a potential landslide.
• But less than a week later, Biden was out and Harris was in — scrambling the polls and detonating the Trump campaign's assumptions about the electoral playing field.

Behind the scenes: "The road got a lot harder. He was the only pick that wasn't the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that," one House Republican told Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his party's VP nominee.

• Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum were the two other finalists to be Trump's running mate.
• Some more establishment-minded Republicans had advocated for former UN ambassador Nikki Haley or Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to appeal to moderates and suburban swing voters.
• "On the whole, the feeling is: doesn't add much," another House Republican said of Trump picking Vance.
• "And now with Kamala at the top, the capacity to have expanded the map a little bit ... would have been much more beneficial."

Zoom in: Coming out of the GOP convention, Vance is the least-liked non-incumbent VP nominee since at least 1980 — and the first to register a net negative favorability rating, according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten.

• The freshman senator and "Hillbilly Elegy" author won his 2022 election in Ohio by 6 percentage points — 2 points less than Trump's winning margin in the state two years earlier.
• Vance, who faced the popular and well-funded Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, underperformed every statewide Republican on the ticket that year, running 20 points behind Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
• Ohio GOP chairman Alex Triantafilou defended Vance's performance, saying DeWine and other Republicans had "the advantage of incumbency" and less serious or well-funded challengers.

Zoom out: Harris' own polling troubles previously led Biden to question whether she could defeat Trump. An NBC News poll last summer found she had the lowest approval rating of any vice president in the survey's history.

• Republicans believe Vance's roots in rural Ohio will help Trump gain ground in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Harris could prove weaker than Biden.
• Vance's presence on the ticket also could help boost Ohio GOP Senate nominee Bernie Moreno, whose race against Democrat Sherrod Brown may determine control of the Senate.

Between the lines: Vance has been widely praised as an intellectual voice for MAGA and a skilled communicator, as well as a candidate with the working-class credentials to appeal to Rust Belt voters.

• But Democrats believe his hardline views on abortion and his caustic rhetoric about women will alienate swing voters, especially with Harris determined to draw a sharp contrast at the top of the ticket.
• During his 2022 Senate campaign, Vance attacked "childless cat ladies" on the left who he claimed have no "direct stake" in the country's future — naming Harris in particular (though she has two step-children).
• A spokesperson for Vance pointed Axios to statements from the senator's aunt and sister highlighting the influence of women in his life, including his late grandmother.

The other side: Trump has shown no indication that he has buyer's remorse, and plans to dispatch Vance for solo rallies in Arizona and Nevada next week.

• "President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
• "I've always said President Trump has the best political instincts of anyone I've ever met. His instincts were right in picking JD Vance," Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told Axios.
• Cook Political Report's Amy Walter also said she doubts whether a running mate besides Haley could truly expand the map, telling Axios that the electoral effect of any VP choice is likely overstated.

The bottom line: Trump allies acknowledge that Vance's selection "was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter," The Atlantic's Tim Alberta reported.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional comments.