JD Vance’s first rally provides insight into how he will coordinate attacks on Harris

Sixteen days after Joe Biden stepped aside and cleared the field for Kamala Harris to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, his vice president has chosen a running mate of her own.

And Republicans, seeking to avoid a misstep the party made when it was caught off guard by Biden dropping out, were ready Tuesday with their attacks.

Tim Walz and JD Vance are now the vice presidential nominees for their respective parties. Both men were picked for their supposed appeal in the industrial midwest, as both campaigns sought an effective message-bearer in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

But Vance’s ascension to the presidential ticket has yet to net the Trump campaign any positive results. As Democrats scrambled to respond to a disastrous debate performance from Joe Biden in late June, the Republican presidential nominee picked an Ohio senator with less than two years’ worth of experience in the job and a litany of his own political baggage to join the GOP ticket. Now, with Harris roaring back into contention in every swing state poll, the incumbent president and his running mate both are eager to blunt Harris’s momentum while recapturing some of their own.

They are seemingly hoping that a line of attack against Walz and Harris both as “far-left” will be what does it. Echoing the concern-trolling from #NeverTrump Republicans who have joined the right flank of the Democratic Party as well as some conservative Democrats worried that the party is insufficiently vocal about its support for Israel, Trump’s allies have begun attacking Harris for picking Walz over Josh Shapiro — the Pennsylvania governor was the target of criticism from progressives who took issue with a college essay in which he wrote that “Palestinians will