As Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and her soon-to-be-announced running mate hit the campaign trail this week in all seven crucial battleground states, Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance will be close by.
The first-term senator from Ohio, who is former President Trump’s running mate on the GOP national ticket, plans to tail Harris as part of the Trump campaign’s plan to bracket the vice president and her running mate on their initial swing state tour.
Sources in the senator’s political orbit confirmed to Fox News that Vance will be in Philadelphia on Tuesday as the vice president kicks off her campaign swing.
The senator is expected to use his stops, which are being described as media availabilities rather than rallies, to take aim at Harris over the key issues of inflation, border security and crime, which Republicans view as the vice president’s political Achilles’ heel.
The Vance events, which were first reported by Politico earlier on Monday, are also expected to feature ‘everyday Americans’ who have been negatively impacted by President Biden’s policies.
Vance is expected to stay close to Harris and her running mate as the Democratic ticket holds rallies Wednesday in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Detroit, Michigan, and on Thursday in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Later in the week, Harris and her running mate will also hold rallies in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
The bracketing of Harris by Vance comes as the senator increasingly fits into the role of the GOP ticket’s attack dog, as well as a key ambassador to the top-dollar Republican donor class.
But Trump, who has a history of practicing in-your-face politics, has had no problem taking direct aim at Harris in the two weeks since she replaced Biden at the top of the Democrats’ ticket.
In social media posts this past weekend and at the rally with Vance in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, Trump charged that the vice president had a ‘low IQ’ and was ‘dumb,’ and accused her of lacking ‘mental capacity.’