A former Republican strategist claims Donald Trump supporters have a big problem with JD Vance’s performance in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate: He was too nice.

That’s what Stuart Stevens, now senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, says.

“Dive into the hard social media of MAGA,” he wrote on X. “Many of them hated Vance’s debate. They wanted Vance to expose Harris as the devil. Instead, he conducted a personal rehabilitation campaign with a goal of 2028.”

Vance Before the debate I could actually only go upstairs. After Democrats labeled him “weird” and played up his previous criticism of “childless cat ladies” and claims that immigrants kidnapped and ate pets, Vance’s favor was at stake. Polls showed that significantly more voters disapproved of him than liked him.

He seemed to change that on Tuesday, when he appeared polite and friendly. He even expressed sympathy for Walz’s son, who once witnessed a shooting, and warmly shook hands and chatted with Tim Walz before and after the debate. A CNN flash poll found debate watchers’ favorable rating of Vance improved by 10 percentage points.

“His strategy was to embrace Walz instead of attacking Harris, which is probably good for JD Vance in the long run,” Stevens told the Daily Beast. “He has reinvented himself in the past and this was kind of another step in that regard. What did he have to be to get on the ticket? He had to be ultra-MAGA and attack cat ladies.”

Now that he’s made it onto the ticket, Stevens believes he has a different mission.

“The general consensus is that he will be killed,” Stevens added. “He tried to come across as a sort of Romney-Bush-like, open-minded problem solver.”

The senator’s measured performance was almost the opposite from Trump’s out-of-control debate last month that could infuriate MAGAworld. And it’s true that Vance spent much of the evening focused on himself, which may get in the way of a president who expects absolute loyalty.

Still, Vance pursued Harris several times. “What have Kamala Harris’ policies actually led to?” he asked on Tuesday evening. “More energy production in China, more production abroad, more business in some of the dirtiest parts of the world.”

Some Republican strategists said Stevens was spreading a false narrative. A national employee immediately dismissed the lawsuit. Another veteran GOP strategist, Jason Roe, also suggested the debate went smoothly.

“Vance has probably done more to support the Trump-Vance ticket than Trump is capable of, and that obviously makes Stevens very angry,” Roe told the Daily Beast.