EXCLUSIVE: BYRON CENTER, Mich. — Donald Trump's running mate has an answer to the blunt advice from allies and fellow Republicans that the former president should stick to policy and messaging instead of questioning Vice President Kamala Harris' crowd sizes at her rallies, her race or attacks on her intellect.

"I think one of the things people actually love about Donald Trump in politics is he’s not unwilling to speak off the cuff. He says what’s actually on his mind. He’s not always filtered. I think that’s a good thing and part of his appeal," GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said Wednesday in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.

But Vance, speaking ahead of a campaign event in battleground Michigan, also emphasized that "if you look at this race, we’re talking about policy. That’s 90% of what we’re doing. And I think that’s going to keep on happening."

Harris has been riding a wave of momentum — witnessed in public opinion polling, in her soaring fundraising and in her large crowds she's attracting on the campaign trail — in the three and a half weeks since she replaced President Biden atop the Democrats' 2024 ticket.

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While criticizing Harris over key issues such as border security, crime and inflation, Trump has also continuously slammed the vice president and insulted her during speeches, news conferences and in social media posts.

Sources in Trump's political orbit tell Fox News that top advisers to the former president are quietly aiming to persuade him to tamp down the insults to Harris and the questioning of the vice president's racial identity and instead focus on branding her an ultra-liberal and spotlighting her stance on the border, crime and inflation

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Trump allies are also publicly pitching Trump to refocus his attention.

"You’ve got to make this race not on personalities," former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Monday in an interview on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position."

McCarthy emphasized that Trump has "a short time frame to do it, so don’t sit back. Get out there and start making the case."

During an interview Tuesday with Bret Baier on Fox News' "Special Report," former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — Trump's top rival from the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year — also had some unsolicited advice for her former boss.

Haley, who reiterated that she wants Trump to win the presidential election, emphasized that "the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It's not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It's not going to win. Talking about whether she's dumb. It's not. You can't win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they're smart."

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Following his interview with Fox News Digital, Vance was also asked about the criticism of Trump from fellow Republicans as he took questions from reporters at the conclusion of his campaign event at a trucking company in this southwestern Michigan town just south of Grand Rapids.

"To the people who say that Donald Trump should do something different, they had an opportunity to make Donald Trump do something different by challenging him over three separate primaries, every single one of which he won. I think Donald Trump has earned the right to run the kind of campaign that he wants to run," Vance emphasized.

But the senator added that "if you listen to what Donald J. Trump says, if you look at what I say, we are prosecuting the case against Kamala Harris on policy."

And taking aim at Harris, Vance charged that "we’d much rather have an American president who is who he is, who’s willing to offend us, who’s willing to tell us the truth, who isn’t a fake who hides behind a teleprompter."

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A Michigan father of two was shot and killed Saturday after a confrontation with his neighbor turned deadly, police said. 

The violence unfolded just before noon in a quiet residential neighborhood in Canton. One neighbor told FOX 2 the neighborhood had never had an episode like this in the more than three decades he had been living there. 

Canton police officers were dispatched to the 200 block of Cornell Street in response to an apparent confrontation between two neighbors. 

Responding officers found the victim with gunshot wounds. He was transported to a local hospital, where he died. 

The shooting suspect, later identified as 47-year-old Devereaux Christopher Johnson, barricaded himself inside his home before eventually surrendering to police. 

"This was a senseless act of violence toward the victim," Canton Police Chief Chad Baugh said in a statement. "The Canton Police Department sends our deepest condolences to the victim’s family, and to the neighbors who may have witnessed this tragic event." 

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The victim was identified as Nathan Morris, a 35-year-old engineer at Ford Motors and a father of two. 

A GoFundMe page set up by Morris’ family described him as a "family man first and foremost [who] was active in the community and ran for the Canton School Board recently." 

Michigan RNC Committeewoman Hima Kolanagireddy said Morris got involved in politics when Ford mandated COVID-19 vaccines. She said she "worked closely with him as the former Chair of the MI-6th CDRC, and as a member of the Wayne 6th CDRC, of which he was a secretary." 

"On Saturday, while taking a stroll with his family in his neighborhood, his daughter touched the mulch of one of the neighbors. The neighbor took a gun out and started threatening the family," Kolanagireddy said. "Nathan sent his family home and said that he would try and defuse the situation, but instead was shot and killed."

Kolanagireddy described Morris as "a gentle soul" who was "near perfect." 

"He would do no harm and think no harm," she wrote. 

Johnson was arraigned Monday in the 35th District Court on first-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a weapon. Judge James A. Plakas remanded Johnson to be held at the Wayne County jail without bond. 

Johnson’s next court hearing is scheduled for Aug. 23.