The day after President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid, The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta wrote via social media, “[The] most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance — a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout.”

This was not the only such report. Axios reported yesterday that some Republicans are “second-guessing the former president’s selection,” with one House GOP member explaining that Vance “was the only pick that wasn’t the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that.”

The same report quoted another House Republican saying the feeling withing the conference is that Vance “doesn’t add much” to the party’s ticket.

The Hill, meanwhile, published a related report of its own overnight.

A number of House Republicans are privately bashing former President Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, warning that the pick will not help — and could hurt — the party’s chances of winning in November.

The article quoted one GOP lawmaker who called the Ohioan “the worst choice of all the options.” Another told The Hill, “I think if you were to ask many people around this building, nine out of 10 on our side would say he’s the wrong pick. [Vance is] the only person who can do serious damage.”.....

But Trump picked him anyway at least in part because Trump assumed he was poised to win anyway. As the former president saw it, with an inevitable 2024 victory in hand, there was no harm in running up the ideological score, satisfying the MAGA base, and establishing greater control over the Republican Party’s vision for the foreseeable future.

That, of course, was when the GOP nominee thought a relatively easy victory over Biden was at hand. As of five days ago, things are suddenly ... different.

All of this obviously matters in an electoral context, but the developments also say a great deal about Trump’s judgment, and none of it’s good.