Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear lashed out at Vice President J.D. Vance in his home state over the weekend, escalating a years-old race between the two 2028 presidential candidates.
On March 21, Beshear spoke before Democrats in Butler County, Ohio, where Vance grew up, attacking the vice president as “arrogant” and out of touch with reality.
“Ohio deserves a better senator and we all deserve a better vice president,” Beshear said, according to audio of the event provided to The New York Times by the governor’s team.
Vance responds to Beshear speech
Vance owns a home in Cincinnati’s East Walnut Hills neighborhood and may have been in the area last weekend. The roads surrounding his home were closed to drivers between March 20 and 22, which usually happens when the Ohio native is returning home.
A spokesman for Vance noted in an email to the Inquirer that Beshear’s previous attacks ended with the Kentucky governor walking back those remarks.
“Every time Andy Beshear attacks the vice president to try to make himself famous, he ends up humiliating himself in the process, but maybe that’s what he likes?” said Taylor Vankirk, Vance’s press secretary.
Beshear, Vance likely 2028 presidential candidates
Beshear said he is considering running for president in 2028 but will not make a decision until his term as governor ends in 2027. The term-limited Democrat won re-election in 2023 over Republican Daniel Cameron. The following year, 64.5% of Kentucky voters elected Donald Trump president.
“No matter what I do next year, no one is going to work harder to beat J.D. Vance in 2028,” Beshear said Saturday.
Vice President J.D. Vance’s press secretary says Gov. Andy Beshear’s attacks on him often end with the governor being humiliated. Vance did not respond to Beshear’s questions on social media.
Butler County Democratic Chairman: Vance is a ‘political opportunist’
The Democratic party was held in Fairfield, Ohio, a suburban city in Butler County, a Republican stronghold. Vance grew up in nearby Middletown, a city of about 52,000 people where 62% of voters voted for Trump.
In an email to the Inquirer, Butler County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Winant called Vance a “political opportunist who reinvents himself when it suits his thirst for power.”
“J.D. Vance grew up in Middletown, where the struggles of the working class were palpable. Nearly 30 percent of the population lived in poverty,” Winant wrote. “Families desperately need real relief, like lower costs and better jobs, but they are tired of empty promises. Unfortunately, J.D. Vance has consistently shown that he works for billionaires, not people struggling to make ends meet.”
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, widely considered a 2028 presidential candidate, continued his attack on Vice President Vance on Saturday, March 21.
Beshear’s comments extend years of rivalry with Vance
Beshear said in the speech that Vance “annoyed me” and accused him of misrepresenting Appalachia in Vance’s 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his upbringing in Ohio and Kentucky.
“He’s written an entire book promoting his outdated stereotypes about the people of our state,” Beshear said in a clip of the speech posted on Instagram. The governor also called Vance “the most arrogant politician I have ever seen,” according to the New York Times.
Beshear has attacked Vance before.
The governor called Vance’s 2024 viral comments about drinking Diet Mountain Dew “bizarre” and asked, “Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?” He later apologized to the soda brand.
That same year, Beshear said Vance should “go through” becoming pregnant as a result of being raped on the MSNBC show.
“J.D. Vance called pregnancy as a result of rape inconvenient,” Beshear said. “The inconvenience is traffic. Let him go through this.”
Beshear was referring to comments Vance made in 2021 when he argued that pregnancy or childbirth due to rape or incest should not be considered an “inconvenience.”
Vance responded to Beshear on social media. On X, he wrote that Beshear “wanted my family to be raped” and called him a “disgusting person.”
Beshear later said Vance “drove attention” on social media and said he “never wishes to hurt anyone.”
This article originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Kentucky’s Beshear says he wants to ‘beat J.D. Vance in 2028’
