DETROIT – It is becoming apparent that Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance will not answer questions about whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.
Vance, at the vice-presidential debate Tuesday with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, ducked when asked point blank by Walz if he thought Trump lost the election.
That came moments after Vance evaded a question about whether he would challenge the election results, even if they were affirmed by governors of the 50 states.
Then on Wednesday, he ducked the issue again.
Vance, earlier this year said he would have liked to have seen certification of the electoral counts for the election handled differently.
In a February interview, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked if he would have certified the 2020 election results as vice president, as required by the Constitution and as then-Vice President Mike Pence did.
Vance called it a “ridiculous question” and claimed Stephanopoulos was “obsessed with talking about this.” But he then said that if he had been vice president, he “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.”
There are no provisions in the Constitution for that approach. Trump argued there was widespread fraud in 2020, but more than 60 courts rejected those arguments. The results were affirmed by officials across the country, including many Republicans. Trump still disputes that he lost.
With that background, the stage was set for moderator Norah O’Donnell’s question Tuesday. She asked if Vance would again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results.
Vance initially sidestepped the question.
“I think that we’re focused on the future,” he said. “We need to figure out how to solve the inflation crisis caused by Kamala Harris’s policies. Make housing affordable, make groceries affordable, and that’s what we’re focused on.”
He added though, without directly answering O’Donnell’s question, that “what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020. And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square.”
In a following exchange with Walz, Vance talked about the threat of censorship on social media as a bigger threat to democracy. Walz responded that Trump’s refusal to accept the election results had “massive repercussions.”
“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say, he is still saying he didn’t lose the election. I would just ask that: Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz said.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”
Walz described Vance’s reply as a “damning non answer.”
On Wednesday, during a rally in Oakland County near Detroit, a local television reporter asked Vance why he dodged the question.
“Why didn’t you answer the question last night during the debate about who won the 2020 presidential election?” Will Jones of Detroit’s Local 4 asked.
“Well, look, here’s the simple reason: The media’s obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago,” Vance said, still without saying Trump lost. “I’m focused on the election of 33 days from now, because I want to throw Kamala Harris out of office and get back to common-sense economic policies.”
Moments later, Vance asserted that officials had “done a lot to make our elections more secure” for 2024.
“Never give in to the despair that your voice doesn’t matter,” Vance said.
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Cleveland.com is closely tracking JD Vance’s every move and the reactions he provokes, as he becomes the first Ohioan in 80 years to appear on a presidential ticket for either major party. The coverage of JD Vance aims to provide a daily snapshot of the buzz surrounding him, capturing what he says, what he does, and what others are saying about him.
