MEDIAITE
It’s not true that nobody at all likes Vice President JD Vance, so he can hold off on the limbless invertebrate snacks for now, but he is struggling to keep his favorability ratings above water in the first few months of his term. Polls show Vance’s popularity ranking lower than his predecessor, former Vice President Kamala Harris — and pretty much every other vice president in modern polling history.
Popularity for vice presidents is a tricky business, as they can end up getting saddled with the problems and challenges of the president but lack the political capital to establish much of their own agenda, and it’s all the more fraught when they have ambitions to run for president themselves.
Adding to the anxiety and pressure on the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history is the fact that President Donald Trump declined to name Vance as his preferred successor during an interview last month on Fox News — plus the rumors that Donald Trump Jr. is considering throwing his own red cap in the ring in 2028. (Trump Jr. denied he was looking to run in a statement with some very colorful language when Mediaite’s Diana Falzone reached out for comment, but multiple sources nonetheless told her the president’s eldest son was indeed thinking of running.)
When Trump tapped Vance to be his running mate, the then-39-year-old was the least experienced veep candidate in modern history, less than two years into his very first Senate term, his very first elected office ever. Vance turned 40 and he and Trump won the election. Then Elon Musk swooped into the White House with his DOGE team and an unprecedented level of power and influence, drawing a swarm of lawsuits and media attention.
Vance’s press coverage has been largely overshadowed by the antics of Trump with his executive orders and pronouncements claiming a right to Canada and Musk with his chainsaw and Tesla woes, but he has gotten headlines for the infamous Oval Office clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a speech where he tried to lecture Western Europe about free speech, and unhinged insults and baseless accusations he’s hurled at Harris, like his comments on a podcast this week where he accused her of starting her days when she was vice president with “four shots of vodka.”