Trump VP Pick JD Vance Has a History of Election Denialism and Anti-Voting Policies
Ahead of taking the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, former President Donald Trump announced on his TruthSocial platform that he has selected U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his official running mate in the 2024 election.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote.
Vance was picked by Trump from a shortlist of potential vice presidents, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R).
Vance, a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps who later became a successful businessman and wrote the best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was elected to Congress in 2022. “J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond….,” Trump wrote.
Much like Trump, Vance has a long history of supporting conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election and anti-voting laws and policies. In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in February, for example, Vance said that, were he the vice president during the 2020 election, he would not have certified the election for President Joe Biden. “If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said.
It’s not the only controversial idea Vance has when it comes to the state of voting. In July of 2021, shortly after Vance announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, he proposed an idea to give parents extra votes in elections, to represent their children of non-voting age, as a response to some Democrats calling to lower the voting age to 16.
The Trump campaign, RNC and other right-wing groups have filed dozens of anti-democracy lawsuits so far this cycle.
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“Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children.” Vance said. “Doesn’t this mean that nonparents don’t have as much of a voice as parents? Doesn’t this mean that parents get a bigger say in how democracy functions?”
In 2022, a television ad that Vance’s campaign ran falsely claimed that illegal immigrants coming into the country are voting in elections. “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country,” Vance said in the ad. Vance’s rhetoric in the ad lines up with the recent effort by Republicans in congress to ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections — a right-wing myth that’s led to the introduction of a nationwide proof of citizenship bill introduced in the U.S. House.
Back in a May interview with CNN, Vance hedged when asked point blank if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash that he would accept the upcoming election results only “’if we have a free and fair election.” Despite numerous false claims of election fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections, no evidence supported such claims.
Most recently, Vance chimed in on The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 — the massive, omnibus right-wing blueprint to revamp the federal government under the next Republican presidency. Speaking with NewsMax, Vance said he “reviewed a lot of” Project 2025 and said “there are some good ideas in there.”
Project 2025 is full of numerous radical proposals that would fundamentally alter the federal government, including a federal abortion ban, eliminating the Department of Education and cutting a number of programs and protections that would impact millions of Americans. A number of proposals outlined in Project 2025 would have serious consequences on voting rights and democracy in America.
Read more about the anti-democracy agenda of Project 2025 here.