Vance says GOP will accept the election results, before returning to voting lies

By Natalie Hausmann

US Vice President JD Vance speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC on January 8, 2026. Vance on Thursday doubled down on the Trump administration's description of a federal immigration agent shooting dead a woman in Minneapolis as being in "self-defense," a characterization disputed by local authorities. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)

Vice President JD Vance briefly broke with President Donald Trump when he said Republicans would accept the results of the November midterms no matter who wins, before lying about widespread election cheating.

Vance told reporters after a meeting with House Republicans Wednesday that the GOP will “support the results of the midterm elections” even if they lose control of Congress.

“We think we’re going to win,” Vance added. “But ultimately that’s up to the American people.”

Vance’s comments conflict with Trump’s frequent false claims that Democrats are using mass voter fraud to cheat in elections. Trump has still not accepted his 2020 election loss and appears unlikely to accept significant GOP losses in the fall. 

The comments also come as the White House continues to push restrictive voting measures through the SAVE America Act, which is stalled in the Senate. 

Trump has promised Republicans would not lose a race for the next 50 years if the bill passes. Despite this, GOP support for the SAVE America Act has only dwindled in recent months.

Tonight, Trump will make a prime-time speech advancing longtime debunked lies about 2020 election interference and cheating. He will likely spend time underscoring his failing bill.

After saying he would accept the results of the midterms, Vance leaned into election lies about widespread voter fraud in the United States.

“We have to do everything we can to discourage cheating. You will hear Democrats say — and I love this line, I can’t help but laugh at it — ‘Cheating isn’t that frequent in American elections,” Vance said. “A single ballot cast illegally in an American election is, in fact, the theft of the ballot from another American citizen, from an American citizen who deserves to be able to vote.”

In a June interview with Bill Maher, the vice president also said he would not question the results of elections but stopped short of condemning election denial altogether.

Vance instead diverted attention to “technology companies that were quite literally censoring information about the left and promoting negative information about the right.”