FLINT, Mich. — Sen. JD Vance, who says his partnership with Donald Trump has cost him friends, is wrapping up his campaign for vice president by asking voters to not let their political differences come between them.
“I really don’t like Kamala Harris and her policies, but most of the people who are voting for Kamala Harris are fundamentally decent people,” the Ohio Republican said in an interview with NBC News aboard his campaign plane Monday. “I just believe that.”
It’s a belief Vance has articulated at his rallies ahead of Election Day.
At an event here Monday afternoon, Vance reminded hundreds of supporters cramped inside a theater that those who “vote the wrong way” are “our fellow citizens.” On Sunday in Pennsylvania, Vance made a similar pitch for civility while vowing that, if they are elected Tuesday, he and Trump are “still going to love” Harris voters, “and we’re still going to serve them.”
Vance himself speaks of Harris, the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, in coarse terms on occasion, like the time he said she can “go to hell.” And last week, at a point of high tension between the campaigns, Vance said anyone who believes U.S. troops in World War II “were fighting for what Kamala Harris is fighting for today,” singling out border security and transition-related medical care is a “dips—.”
But on his plane Monday, Vance said his closing message of respect is important given the increasingly hostile tone of the race.
During a Trump rally last week at New York’s Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” in a set that included other racist jokes. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, compared the rally to a Nazi gathering. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage,” though he and the White House tried to clarify that he was speaking only of Hinchcliffe.
“I’ve never heard Trump in private or in public just sort of say, ‘We’re going to call everybody who votes for the other side bad people,” Vance said. “That’s just not how he thinks.”
“It goes back to the ‘basket of deplorables,’” Vance added, referring to the disparaging remarks that Hillary Clinton made about Trump supporters in 2016 and acknowledging his own past as a Trump critic. “Even when I was not a Trump guy back then … that really pissed me off.”
For Vance, these sentiments are personal. He said that he and his wife, Usha, have lost friends since he established himself as a staunch Trump ally in his 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio.
“Going back to the Senate race, certainly, but more accelerated, I would say, over the VP race is just people … that my kids have hung out with, that I would have trusted to like, you know, babysit my children, who over politics are just like, ‘No, we’re washing our hands of you. This is unacceptable,’” Vance said. “I think it’s very tragic when you have family members and friends discarding lifelong relationships over political disagreements.”
“I’ve never once thought to myself, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be your friend because you voted for Bernie [Sanders] or you voted for Biden,’” Vance added. “It’s just not the way that I think. And you know, I have many flaws, but I think that’s one of my virtues.”
Vance’s final day of campaigning Monday was set to be his busiest yet, packed with battleground state visits to Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. He was noticeably tired — tousled hair and dressed casually in a hoodie, t-shirt and jeans — as he arrived with his wife to catch the campaign plane Monday morning at a private airport near his Cincinnati home. To wake everyone up, Vance aides played Europe’s “The Final Countdown” at high volume as the plane took off for La Crosse, Wisconsin.
A few hours later, between his stops in La Crosse and Flint, Vance was in good spirits, joking and pointing out the artwork from his three young children that was decorating the passenger cabin. Much of his staff joined him for the final swing, including Andy Surabian, Jai Chabria and Luke Thompson, three of Vance’s longest-serving political advisers. In LaCrosse, they stopped to pick up some Old Style beer — a Midwest classic — and shoot a brief video in front of a stack of brewery tanks known as the World’s Largest Six Pack.
“We’re having fun,” Vance said. “It’s the last day. Feels kind of weird, but here we are.”
Reflecting at the end of his campaign, Vance said he most enjoyed the opportunity to travel with his children and with Usha, who sat beside him paying household bills.
“Seeing the country from the perspective of a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old and 2-year-old, with all the crazy s— that they say, the observations that they have,” Vance added. “The way that my 4-year-old points to some of your colleagues who have cameras and says, ‘Daddy, is that the fake news?’ It’s like, ‘No, we’re not allowed to say that, son.”
Though Vance laughed at that memory, news reporters were top of mind when asked about his biggest frustration as a national candidate. He argued that mainstream media did not adequately vet Harris — who has been vice president for nearly four years and ran for president in 2020 — after Biden ended his campaign and urged Democrats to coalesce around her.
“Meanwhile, [the media] talks about, you know, the ‘cat ladies’ controversy or some random joke that Trump made at a rally. ” Vance said, alluding to remarks he made in 2021 that disparaged Harris and other Democratic leaders who do not have biological children.
“I’ve really been disappointed at just the nature of the conversation,” Vance added. “As somebody who’s very patriotic … do I think that we’ve actually had a serious debate in this country over serious issues over the last couple of months? Sometimes yes, but sometimes no.”
Vance was particularly critical of the Washington Post, which in September reported on Trump criticism he shared in private social media messages between him and acquaintance in 2020. A recent Fox News report focused on the newspaper’s negative coverage of Vance.
“The Washington Post has conducted itself like a left-wing tabloid,” Vance said. “Every time I talk to a Washington Post reporter, it’s not even like, ‘Oh, your questions are so biased.’ It’s, ‘I can’t believe how dumb your questions are.’”
NBC News reached out to the Washington Post for comment.
Vance’s final campaign sprint has included speculation about his future. Win or lost Tuesday, Vance, 40, is positioned to be a leading figure in the party for years to come.
“We’re getting four more years of Trump, and then eight years of JD Vance!” Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son and a close Vance ally, said last week while campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Vance’s home state of Ohio.
Vance called such considerations “abstract” in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan last week. But the possibility of Vance 2028 was much more perceptible at a rally Sunday night in New Hampshire, a state once thought to be safe for Harris but where campaign officials believe the race has tightened. It also happens to be the state that holds the first GOP presidential primary.
“You could tell they were excited,” Vance said of his audience. “New Hampshire obviously doesn’t get a lot of love during the general election. I think we have an outside chance there. And so it was worth making a stop.”
Was it an investment in Vance’s future?
“I don’t even like to think about that stuff,” Vance said. “A Republican consultant will come up and say, ‘Hey, you know … blah, blah, blah, blah, you’ve acquitted yourself well.’ I don’t want to overstate things, because I think, yes, life will go on and America will still be the best country in the world. But I really, really, really don’t want us to lose, and it’s hard to even think about anything post that. So hopefully we win, we do a lot of good. And you know, 2028 — we can worry about it later.”
