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Sen. JD Vance’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election at last week’s vice presidential debate culminated his years-long conversion from a Never Trump critic into a MAGA supporter.
When asked directly by Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Gov. Tim Walz if former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Vance said, “Tim, I’m focused on the future.” Walz called the Ohio Republican’s response a “damning non-answer.”
Vance’s response was a departure from what he said in the weeks after the 2020 election, when, in a little-noticed interview, he indicated he believed that Trump had lost the election and accepted that Biden would be inaugurated.
“I really don’t see any reason to think that this is gonna become, you know, violent or chaotic,” Vance said, in a prediction that was disproven by the events of January 6, 2021. “I think, you know, people certainly feel that they need to fight and they need to see this through to the end, but I think they’re supportive of the president continuing the litigation.”
“But I also don’t think, frankly, these are the sorts of people who are gonna go burn up stores and set cars on fire and make life a living hell for everybody. I think that when Biden is inaugurated, people will, you know, more or less accept it and it’ll be on to the next fight.”
Vance said he felt there was hypocrisy in how Democrats had never fully accepted Trump’s 2016 victory, but Republicans were asked to immediately accept Biden’s win. Ultimately, Vance told podcast host Megyn Kelly in an interview that aired the last week of November 2020 that Trump supporters would accept Biden’s win and people would move on when he was inaugurated.
Most notably, Vance never parroted Trump’s stolen election rhetoric during this time, according to a CNN KFile review of his social media activity. In fact, Vance never tweeted or liked any content related to the aftermath of the 2020 election at the time. Vance was promoting the release of the “Hillbilly Elegy” movie, based on his bestselling book.
Likes on X – formerly Twitter – are now hidden, but CNN archived a copy of Vance’s before he was picked as Trump’s running mate.
“It’s no secret that Senator Vance believes Big Tech rigged the 2020 election against President Trump, but JD is focused on the future,” Vance spokesperson William Martin said in a statement after this story first published.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his legal team launched numerous lawsuits in battleground states, promoted unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud, and repeatedly called on his supporters to reject Biden’s victory — culminating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
There is no evidence of massive fraud in any of those cities or around the country as Republican election officials and Trump’s then-Attorney General William Barr have acknowledged. Trump and his supporters filed more than 60 cases in six key battleground states following the election and lost each one.
Vance’s silence during this period stands in stark contrast to Trump’s aggressive efforts to overturn the election results.
Vance began to change his tune when running for office, however.
In July 2021, he entered the Ohio Senate Republican primary under a barrage of criticism for past anti-Trump remarks, including calling Trump “reprehensible” in now-deleted tweets from 2016.
Vance apologized for past anti-Trump comments and soon began parroting the former president’s stolen election rhetoric during the 2022 race.
In one Republican primary debate, he loudly declared, “I think the election was stolen from Donald Trump.”
In January 2022, he attacked then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican for his belief that Trump incited the attack on the Capitol. In comments posted on X in July 2021, he criticized those who said the “2020 election was totally legitimate.”
Trump’s eventual endorsement of Vance in the crowded Ohio Senate primary gave the venture capitalist the credibility he needed among the former president’s loyal base. The endorsement not only helped Vance overcome skepticism about his earlier Trump criticism but also propelled him ahead of his pro-Trump competitors, making him the front-runner for the GOP nomination and eventual winner of the general election in a state that twice backed Trump.
This story has been updated with a statement from Vance’s spokesperson.
