2024 Elections

They’ve watched the party move away from them under Donald Trump. They’re worried his chosen successor could accelerate the shift.

Business leaders worry about how JD Vance could influence Donald Trump and the future of the Republican Party. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO

By Hailey Fuchs and Sam Sutton

11/03/2024 02:00 PM EST

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Business leaders watched with growing frustration as Donald Trump pushed the Republican Party toward a kind of populism they fear will threaten their bottom lines. Now, they’re worried about JD Vance.

The Ohio senator represents a new kind of conservative right that is skeptical of corporations and eschews the GOP’s old free trade ideology. And he has done little in office or as the vice presidential nominee to quell their concerns.

Vance has consistently bashed big business, expressed antipathy toward corporate merger activities, sided with labor and emphasized his support for costly tariffs. He’s spoken favorably of the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, who is universally viewed as a thorn in the side of major businesses, and forged unlikely alliances with progressives including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

With Vance by Trump’s side, some corporate leaders worry a second Trump administration would be even more hostile to their interests than the first was. While he would have little agenda-setting power of his own, Vance would likely reinforce Trump on key economic issues — trade policy, labor issues, market power — unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, who acted more as a check on Trump’s populist leanings.

“[Vance] has taken a tack that big business, particularly some of the big tech stuff, is by definition bad,” said William H. Strong, a Republican donor and financial executive. “Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you’re bad ... I don’t like those broad characterizations that he alludes to that big business is somehow bad. It’s just not.”

Vance isn’t raising concern among business leaders only because of specific policies he might push. They also fear Vance would help turn the party more broadly even further away from the pro-business, small government conservatism that defined its policies for decades, accelerating the years-long change.

Gone are the days of the free-market approaches of Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman.

“That orthodoxy has definitely changed, which is there’s much more an open discussion about tariffs, there’s much more an open discussion about antitrust, there’s much more of a discussion about like appealing to union — to rank and file union........

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