FAIRFIELD, Ohio — Although President Donald Trump is the Democrats’ chief nemesis, some of the party’s most ambitious leaders are increasingly looking past him, turning their attention to the vice president (JD Vance).
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear traveled to Vance’s home county in Ohio, where he claimed the vice president had abandoned the communities he wrote about in the memoirs that made him famous.
Beshear declared that “Hillbilly Elegy,” a work detailing Vance’s difficult upbringing, had “trafficked in tired stereotypes.”
“His book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was actually ‘Hillbilly Hate,'” the governor said during a Democratic fundraiser in Butler County. “It’s poverty tourism, because he’s not from Appalachia.”
This harsh attack was not only a sign of Beshear’s own potential presidential aspirations, but also a reflection of Vance’s status as the Republican heir apparent to the coalition that twice elected Trump to the White House.
«With each passing day, we get closer to the moment when Donald Trump is no longer president. And we must prepare for that day,” said Lis Smith, Democratic strategist. «Right now, JD Vance is a clear favorite for the 2028 nomination. Therefore, we should start defining him right now; not in 2027, not in 2028, but today.
Vance spokeswoman Taylor Van Kirk dismissed Beshear’s criticism.
«Every time Andy Beshear attacks the vice president to try to get publicity, he ends up humiliating himself in the process; “But maybe that’s something you like to do?” he commented.
A first opponent for the Democratic candidates
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California was one of the first Democrats to start focusing on Vance last year. Khanna made stops at the City Club of Cleveland and Yale University — where he and Vance studied law — and gave speeches attempting to portray Vance as an even more extremist figure than Trump. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — another potential 2028 presidential contender — took direct aim at Vance in November, arguing that the Trump administration didn’t care about workers.
“At least with Donald Trump, he’s transparent about it,” Shapiro said. “JD Vance is a total fake.”
Some Democrats have lined up around California Governor Gavin Newsom, considering him a strong candidate because of his aggressive strategy to attack Republicans.
He coined the nickname “JD ‘Just Dance’ Vance” on social media and has mocked the vice president’s appearance, claiming that Vance “grew a beard and lost his spine.”
Smith, the strategist who ran Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign and still works with the former Transportation Secretary in the Biden administration, said every line of criticism of Vance constitutes a kind of audition.
“There’s definitely value in taking on Vance to show Democrats, ‘Hey, this could be me on a debate stage facing him,'” Smith said.
Vance often invokes his working-class roots.
The vice president was born and raised in Middletown, Butler County, and rose to prominence with the publication of *Hillbilly Elegy* in 2016. The book earned Vance a reputation as someone able to help explain Trump’s appeal in “Middle America,” especially among the working class and rural white voters who helped Trump win the presidency.
Vance carried that reputation with him to the U.S. Senate — after winning election in 2022 — and, later, to the vice presidency. Those same origins are likely to be a central element of any future presidential bid, and they are precisely what Democrats are now working to undermine.
During Saturday’s Democratic fundraiser, the mere mention of Vance’s name sparked a chorus of boos from the audience.
“I don’t think he has that magic that everyone sees in Trump,” said Theresa Vacheresse, a retired doctor and business owner who attended the event. «I think that, when Trump is gone, the Democrats could have a chance. My God, I hope so!
The attention focused on Vance is not unusual for a vice president widely considered a possible future candidate, especially one as young as he is, 41 years old. Republicans attacked Kamala Harris from the beginning of her term under President Joe Biden in order to undermine her political future.
Jamal Simmons, Harris’ communications director in 2022 and 2023, noted that vice presidents can be vulnerable.
“The structure of the party is designed to defend the president more than the vice president,” he said. “The vice president finds himself, in a sense, out in the open and on his own, forced to defend himself and look for allies where he can.”
Republicans — including Vance himself — frequently linked Harris to some of the Democratic administration’s most politically thorny issues, such as immigration and border security.
“Being vice president is a very mixed blessing,” said David Axelrod, who was a top adviser to Democratic President Barack Obama. “You often don’t have the resources of the president, but you inherit his entire record: the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Beshear has had successes in “Trump territory.”
Beshear is one of those rare Democrats who govern a “red” (Republican) state, and he is emerging as someone capable of connecting with those voters who have distanced themselves from his party.
He said Democrats can “really go out and win back those voters that JD Vance is so condescending to” if they stay focused on Americans’ basic needs, such as affordable health care and public safety.
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