On a warm, gray morning in mid-September, a small group of reporters waited under the wing of a plane at a private terminal at Ronald Reagan National Airport, anticipating the arrival of the Vice-Presidential candidate J. D. Vance. Earlier in the week, a would-be assassin had tried to ambush Donald Trump on his golf course in West Palm Beach, the second attempt on Trump’s life this summer, and the apparatus accompanying Vance had the feel of an armed brigade. The travelling party included a dozen staffers and about the same number of Secret Service officers. When Vance’s motorcade pulled up to Trump Force Two—a Boeing 737 with the names of anonymous donors (Edward M., Victoria W.) painted on the tail fin—it contained twelve cars. In the only other political campaign that Vance had run, for the United States Senate, in 2022, he had ridden to events in an aide’s old Subaru. Now he and his wife, Usha, accompanied by their ten-month-old dog, Atlas, emerged from a long black Suburban, both trim and elegantly dressed for the campaign trail.