In Vance, Trump finds a kindred spirit on election denial and Jan. 6

In tapping Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, Donald Trump chose someone who has said he would have done what Vice President Mike Pence refused to do — ignore the Constitution and try to derail certification of Trump’s election loss in 2020.

Vance has said he would have used the vice president’s role overseeing the electoral count to recognize Trump electors from states the then-president didn’t win and that Congress “should have fought over it from there.” That, he said in February as he auditioned to be Trump’s pick, was the proper way to deal with an election “that had a lot of problems.”

Should Trump lose again, Vance wouldn’t have the chance to attempt that strategy this time around. Regardless of who wins, Vice President Harris will preside over the congressional counting of the electoral votes in January. And Trump’s pressure on Pence to meddle in the 2020 results — which culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — prompted Congress to pass a law in 2022 clarifying that the vice president’s authority over the process is extremely limited.

But Vance’s full-throated embrace of the former president’s election denial rhetoric — parroting his claims that the 2020 election was stolen, that Jan. 6 rioters are unjustly prosecuted and that Trump’s criminal charges are a form of election interference — positions him as a governing partner who’s aligned with some of Trump’s most antidemocratic behaviors. And the example of Jan. 6, scholars say, shows why that’s so perilous.

“If Vance did what he said he would do, we could have had chaos on our hands for quite a while, and it would have been terrible for the country,” said Edward Foley, who directs the election law program at Ohio State University. “It’s either a failure of understanding the Constitution or willful defiance.”

Vance, a freshman senator and onetime Trump critic, has emerged in recent years as one of the former president’s most vocal and fervent backers — especially when it comes to election denial. Since early 2021, Vance has made social media statements casting doubt on the 2020 vote or alleging interference in the 2024 election more than a dozen times, according to a Washington Post analysis of his remarks and postings across several platforms. A spokesperson for Vance did not respond to a request for comment.

Like Trump, Vance won’t rule out contesting the results of this year’s election, saying he would accept the outcome if it is “free and fair.” He’s mimicked Trump’s attacks on the integrity of U.S. elections, repeatedly saying he would do away with early voting, arguing that allowing voters to mail in absentee ballots or cast ballots in person at election offices “creates extraordinary opportunities for fraud.” Election records show Vance has voted before Election Day in person several times over the past several years, including during the 2020 general election.

“We should go back to having an election *day* in this country,” he posted on X two weeks ago.

Fealty to Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him appeared to have been an important litmus test after Pence resisted intense pressure from Trump’s MAGA movement to scuttle certification of Biden’s victory.

“It certainly seems to be the perception that the way to [Trump’s] heart is to mimic his views about Jan. 6 and election denialism,” said Joel Goldstein, an expert on the vice presidency and professor at St. Louis University School of Law.

Vance’s assertion that he would have indulged Trump’s plans to try to stay in office set him apart from others on Trump’s shortlist for vice president. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) voted to certify Biden’s victory in 2020. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) has avoided commenting on Trump’s pressure on Pence to block Biden’s win.

Vance, by contrast, has been outspoken in saying he would have done his part in the effort to use Trump electors to overturn the vote, which is now the subject of prosecutions in multiple states.

“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 told ABC News.

“Do I think Joe Biden would still be president right now? Yeah, probably,” Vance told the New York Times for a story published last month. “But at least we would have had a debate.”

Experts say Vance’s position would have been unconstitutional and reveals that the Yale-trained lawyer is willing to test the legal limits to accommodate the former president.

“There was no legal or evidentiary basis for doing that at all. So J.D. Vance has already declared that Donald Trump is more important to him than the Constitution and the oath he would swear as vice president,” said Norm Eisen, an attorney who served as counsel to House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment. “That should give everybody who cares about American democracy chills.”

In the run-up to Pence presiding over the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of the vote in Congress, Trump repeatedly pressured him to deny Biden’s victory, even though the vice president lacked such authority under the Constitution. Republican electors had signed certificates claiming Trump had won seven states carried by Biden. Some Trump advisers claimed Pence could recognize those rival slates or call on state legislatures to do so.

After rioters breached the Capitol — some of them chanting “Hang Mike Pence” — the vice president was rushed off the Senate floor by Secret Service agents and taken to a secure location with his family.

Vance has criticized the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “the real assault on Democracy” and urged Republicans to “fight fire with fire.” He has called the defendants charged in connection with the violent Capitol riot “political prisoners” and has mocked Pence for exaggerating the threat to his life that day.

“I’m extremely skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger,” Vance said in a CNN interview in May. “In politics, people like to really exaggerate things from time to time.”

Tom Joscelyn, a key author of the House Jan. 6 committee’s report, said it’s important to note that Pence wouldn’t endorse Trump for the presidency this time.

“Pence made it clear that he chose the Constitution, while Vance has said he would have, in effect chosen Trump,” Joscelyn said. “And now Trump has rewarded Vance for his servility.”

Vance has also promoted Republican talking points that immigrants coming into the United States illegally boost votes for Democrats, even though it is unlawful for noncitizens to vote and that incidents of it are extremely rare.

In the spring, as it became clear Vance was on the shortlist of vice-presidential contenders, he appeared outside the New York City courthouse during Trump’s criminal trial and repeated claims that the case against Trump was politically motivated, calling it a “threat to American democracy.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot have a country where you get to prosecute your political opponents instead of persuading voters,” he said.

David Pepper, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman who now focuses on pro-democracy work, called Vance Trump’s “rapid-response senator,” who is willing to say or do anything to defend the former president.

“It’s the Trump relationship where loyalty comes above democracy and the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power,” Pepper said. “And he’s not subtle about it.”