JD Vance has spent a year-and-a-half positioning himself as Donald Trump’s heir apparent. But there’s one thing he may be lacking, according to political analysts and people on social media: charisma.

The vice president is the presumed front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, but his lead may be slipping. In a new Emerson College/The Hill survey, Secretary of State Marco Rubio performs slightly better in four of five hypothetical matchups. (Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, holds a 5-point edge over both Republicans.)

Vance is unpopular with Americans, just barely surpassing Trump in favorability polls: A survey released in June by Navigator Research, a Democratic-aligned nonprofit, showed his ratings remain low on major issues like inflation and cost of living (-27 net approval) and gas prices (-39 net approval), with his approval on immigration earning him his highest net score (-9).

While they didn’t poll anything as nebulous as “charisma,” the pundit class and the internet have spoken: Vance is kind of a “charisma vacuum.”

Vance often tells jokes that fall flat. Take earlier this week when he was introduced before a speech in Brewer, Maine, by Jamie Beers, a local maintenance manager at a defense technology company who happened to have a beard.

Speaking to the crowd, Vance, bearded himself, quipped, “Jamie, I hate good-looking guys with beards because they make me feel jealous,” then quickly — thankfully — pivoted to praising Beers for his work ethic and devotion to his family.

Vance: I hate good-looking guys with beards because they make me feel jealous pic.twitter.com/sCo54z1rdZ

In July, the VP attempted a Wisconsin accent during a speech in the state, drawing zero laughter from the crowd.

Then there was the long-winded, convoluted “cookie story”: In June, Vance compared his 6-year-old son lying about stealing a cookie to people who deny committing election fraud.

JD Vance: "My 6-year-old gives me a big hug and says, 'Daddy, I didn't steal any of the cookies!' Well of course he stole the cookies. So when I hear a guy protesting out of nowhere, 'I did not do any election fraud! I did not do any election fraud!' It makes me wonder, why is… pic.twitter.com/E9j4YIrKw1

“Why is he always putting down his kid?” Sam Stein, the managing editor of The Bulwark, joked after watching the clip. (While campaigning with Trump, Vance talked about telling one of his kids, “Son, shut the hell up for 30 seconds about Pikachu” when Trump called asking him to be his running mate.)

Whatever you think of Trump, he has always had a certain gravitational pull ― a charisma and dynamism that have fueled and continually regenerated the MAGA movement. Could Vance pull that same act off?

Even people associated with MAGA are skeptical. Earlier this month, during an interview with CNN, former Trump deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews noted Vance’s failure to “rizz” after the he tried to fat-shame a conservative pundit.

During the segment, Matthews said, “People are receptive to Trump’s trolling, but I don’t think people are as receptive to JD Vance’s because Trump is at least, like him or not, charismatic. JD Vance is negative rizz when it comes to charisma.”

Why does Vance seem so awkward — and what actually makes someone charismatic? We turned to experts who study charisma, confidence and social skills to understand the disconnect.

Our experts all emphasized that charisma is hard to define — especially when we’re talking about people we observe rather than interact with directly, said Alison Wood Brooks, a Harvard professor and behavioral scientist who studies the psychology of everyday conversation.

“When we watch a politician, we’re trying to answer a bunch of very difficult questions with limited information: Do I like this person? Do I trust this person? Would I want to know this person? Do I trust them to lead?” Wood Brooks told HuffPost.

We don’t have great access to the qualities that would actually determine whether someone would be an effective president, so ― like humans do in many domains ― we rely on cues and heuristics, the mental shortcut that allows an individual to make a decision, pass judgment or solve a problem quickly.

“‘I like this person’ or ‘this person seems comfortable in their own skin’ can start bleeding into judgments about competence and leadership, in part because we know that social skills matter for leading other people,” she said.

Vance’s delivery does lack charisma because he appears to be looking for approval, according to Janice Tomich, a communication specialist and public speaking coach.

“He is performing ― not being his true self,” she told HuffPost. “It’s as though a marketing team has written his script for him, but what he speaks to is not his true experience.”

Another politician that Tomich thinks struggles with charisma as well is Gavin Newsom. “He comes across as trying too hard,” she said. The 2028 president contenders she sees as most charismatic are Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“They simply know who they are and communicate from that place,” she said.

David Niven, a former Democratic speech writer and a professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at University of Cincinnati in Ohio, brought up a quote from John Updike’s novel “Rabbit, Run” to illustrate what Vance is lacking.

“At one point, the main character says: ‘If you have the guts to be yourself, other people will pay your price,’” Niven said. “JD Vance lacks the guts to be himself.”

Vance, who chronicled his working-class Ohio upbringing in “Hillbilly Elegy,” graduated from Ohio State University before earning a law degree from Yale Law School. He’s something of a political code-switcher: an Ivy Leaguer fluent in the language of liberal elites who can work with venture capitalists, and a Trump-esque populist who can tap into his roots and talk about his union-steelworker papaw. But the MAGA makeover is newer, which Niven thinks comes off as disingenuous.

“He’s a constantly shifting character that he’s created to access political power, and when that is on display people tend to cringe,” Niven told HuffPost.

Charisma isn’t synonymous with being polished, conventionally warm, or even universally likable. Just look at Trump.

“Researchers who have analyzed Donald Trump’s political communication have found unusually high levels of informality, vocal dynamism and grandiosity; other research finds that his rhetoric frequently invokes shared identity and common goals,” Wood Brooks said.

Research on his voice in particular points to changes in pitch, amplitude, rhythm and speaking rate that contribute to his unusually informal style.

“A communication style can be extremely compelling to one audience and off-putting to another,” she said.

Not everyone agrees that Vance is a charisma blackhole. What he might lack in old-school Bill Clinton-level charisma, he more than makes up for in that he feels like a regular guy, said Jeff Callahan, author of the bestselling book “Confidence-Maxxing: Skills + Reps + Time = Confidence.”

“What will be interesting to watch as we move into 2028 is that you’ll see JD Vance zeroing in on the persona of ‘the likable guy you know,’” Callahan told HuffPost. “Vance is really good at just being a normal dude.”

Callahan thinks every so-called “awkward” moment makes Vance more relatable, and that the vice president is a classic example of the pratfall effect, a psychological phenomenon where a competent or successful person becomes more likable and relatable after making a minor, clumsy mistake. He also believes that could help him clinch the presidency.

“When he gets on a debate stage, or a podcast, or on video, voters will feel as if he’s someone they know ― or at least could know ― and that will be powerful,” Callahan said.

The goal isn’t perfect delivery. It’s responsiveness, Wood Brooks said.

“Some of the most charming moments happen when something goes wrong and the person communicates, essentially: ‘Well, that was weird. We’re all still OK. We’re in this together,’” she said. “That little flash of shared humanity can be incredibly connecting.”

We got a little hint of Rubio’s personality in a viral clip from the Katie Miller podcast, where he called Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA diet of meat and sauerkraut “crazy” and “unsustainable,” and praised Pop-Tarts as “one of the great American innovations.”

It was charming without feeling forced.

“That Rubio clip showed that charm often appears when we don’t see the effort behind it,” Wood Brooks said. “A spontaneous smile, laugh, reaction or moment of self-awareness can feel more charming precisely because it doesn’t seem engineered to make us like the person.”

Once we become aware of someone trying to charm us, the spell can break, she said.

Granted, Rubio, who is 55 and a mainstay in politics for almost 30 years, has had more time to develop his political persona. But when he talks, it seems like he’s not afraid of having flaws, Tomich said.

“He innately knows he is human like everyone else,” she said. “He has the confidence to be a bit vulnerable without crossing the professional or diplomatic line. Rubio’s level of charisma is head and shoulders above Vance’s.”

The root of political charm is the capacity to make people feel something — anything ― hope or anger or something else, Niven said.

Can this be taught? There’s a whole industry of politician consultants out there whose jobs depend on that hope, he said.

“But it is hard to transcend yourself,” Niven said. “I happened to see Hillary Clinton’s third grade report card in a display at the Clinton Library. Her grades were perfect. The comments were perfect except for one — the teacher said Hillary needed to improve at reading aloud to the class. Even then, the charm of public presentation was not her strength.”

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