Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, stepped out of his campaign plane Wednesday at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin and impulsively walked over toward Air Force Two, which was parked on the same tarmac.

Walking with his campaign team and security at his side, Vance quipped to the press that he was just trying to get a better look at the plane because it is “going to be my plane in a few months.”

Vance then told the reporters he was worried Vice President Kamala Harris’s press gaggle “might get a little lonely” because Harris hasn’t answered one question in the 18 days since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. If you watch the clip, you can see Harris’s motorcade in the background hurrying off without answering one question or encountering Vance.

Of course, the headlines from liberal media outlets didn’t help Vance. New York Magazine wrote, “Vance awkwardly doesn’t confront Harris on plane,” and the Daily Beast wrote “Vance awkwardly retreats from confronting Harris.”

The outlets entirely missed the juice: Vance talked to reporters and was willing to take questions. And more importantly, they missed Harris being gone by the time Vance approached the plane.

The Ohio senator also took questions from the press after rallies in Pennsylvania and Michigan, as he followed the same campaign trail as Harris and her running mate, Gov. Time Walz (D-MN). In the past few days, Vance has emerged from a bumpy first couple of weeks as former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, navigating the opposition research dump that effectively minimized his stride. Now, he appears to be a poised and confident political athlete who gave sound rally speeches and then took questions from local press in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

He has also emerged as a pretty effective attack dog for the team.

Initially, Vance was besieged in the national media by spliced, awkward clips of him that helped Democrats, disgruntled Republicans, and fed hungry news media that were eager to spread the characterization of him, initiated by Walz, as “weird.”

Now, everyone calls him weird. Harris called him weird. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) called him weird, which is interesting unto itself because of the number of times Vance has had to defend West Virginians from insults hurled their way. In fact, pretty much every panel on MSNBC and CNN called Vance and Trump weird.

The Associated Press even reported that the “Vance is weird” message provided Democrats with a “narrative advantage” without asking one single voter outside of New York and Washington, D.C., if it actually does.

Then something changed. When Vance arrived in South Philadelphia to hold a rally at the 2300 Arena and talked to the local press, he left behind the persona of a guy who everyone thought would lose the messy Ohio Republican primary in 2022 or the general election and showed people why he was picked to be Trump’s running mate.

Joe Dychala of Delaware County told the local CBS news affiliate that he came to kick Vance’s tires and see what he was all about.

“He’s a young guy,” Dychala told CBS News. “He’s untested. He’s been, you know, sort of like an Obama-esque type of senator. He’s been in there for a couple of years only, but he’s a rags-to-riches story. He’s a Marine.”

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“We respect him highly for that, but we want to see what he’s all about,” he added.

Vance’s pivot to show event attendees and the press that he was more than a meme highlighted why he was picked in the first place. But his challenge will be trying to stay on course and prove himself, not just to media critics and Democrats, but also to reluctant Republicans who are unsure of his political acumen.