Behind closed doors on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance urged a room full of Republicans to sell voters on the administration’s more popular achievements that he worried weren’t always breaking through.

One person, however, has proved particularly difficult to keep on message: President Donald Trump.

Since joining Trump’s ticket in 2024, Vance has taken on the role of disciplined translator for a president whose instinct-driven improvisational style enthralls his admirers but often pulls attention from the message his advisers want voters to hear. Now, with control of Congress at stake in November, that role has taken new urgency. Vance is expected to aggressively campaign for Republican candidates — “divide and conquer” with Trump, as one source close to him put it — as the two carve up the midterm map.

The stakes for both Vance and the Republican Party will stretch beyond November, as he weighs his own future as the president’s likeliest political heir.

Vance offered a telling example of his approach Thursday at an event outside Trump’s two-day midterm convention in Dallas. According to audio obtained by CNN, Vance told convention attendees from his home state of Ohio and the battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that TrumpRx — a website for Americans to search for prescription drug discounts — was “the single issue that has the most broad, popular appeal.”

“You see this in every poll that we’ve ever seen,” Vance said.

Yet, Trump waited until the second hour of his midterm convention speech Wednesday to mention the initiative — and even then did not namecheck the program that bears his surname.

Vance had his own turn before the party faithful Thursday, headlining night two of the Republican Party’s midterm convention (before Trump returned to the stage to close out the gathering). There, Vance playfully batted away chants of “JD! 48!” — a reference to the hope that he will succeed the 47th president — as premature, while sidestepping the topics that animated Trump’s own remarks, like his surprise pledge to cut Americans $5,000 checks if his party holds power, the Iran war and tariffs.

Instead, he laid out a vision for Trump’s America First movement focused on families and forgotten Americans that could serve as a platform for a presidential campaign. He also urged Republicans not to let differences divide them to the benefit of Democrats, as he continues a months-long push to keep Trump’s fragile coalition together for the midterm elections and beyond.

“Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there,” he said.