JD Vance’s biggest election gaffes and controversies, from bad drag to that couch rumour
JD Vance has not had the smoothest campaign trail (Drew Hallowell/Getty)
With just five weeks left until the US elections, the campaign trail isn’t getting any easier for Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance.
In July, former president and second-term hopeful Donald Trump announced that Ohio senator Vance would be his running mate.
Since then, Vance, who seemingly opposes LGBTQ+ rights and is notably anti-trans, has faced unfounded accusations of having had sex with his couch, had old photographs comes back to haunt him, made some humiliating gaffes in front of voters, used misogynistic language, and backed Trump’s false and racist claim that Haitian migrants were abducting and eating pet cats and dogs.
As he prepares for the televised debate with Democratic rival Tim Walz on Tuesday (1 October), here are four of Vance’s most disastrous moments on the campaign trail – so far, anyway.
That couch rumour
The first big hit to Vance’s national public image came just mere weeks after he was named as the Republican choice for vice-president. The untrue claim was posted on X/Twitter by a now-deleted user and suggested there was a section in the senator’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy where he pleasured himself on the sofa.
The user wrote that they “can’t say for sure but he might be the first VP [vice-president] pick to have admitted in a New York Times bestseller to f**king an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions.”
The bizarre accusation was quickly debunked, including in a since-redacted fact-check piece by the Associated Press, but it did not stop the claim going viral, resulting in countless gags, memes, and even the Kamala Harris campaign making a tongue-in-cheek post on social media: “JD Vance does not couch his hatred for women.”
The couch conspiracy theory was even addressed as part of Walz first speech as Harris’ running mate, when he addressed a crowd of supporters at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, in Philadelphia. “Like all regular people in America’s heartland, JD Vance studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and wrote a bestseller trashing that community.
“That’s not what Middle America is. I got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy… that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.
“See what I did there?”
JD Vance: secret drag queen?
In August, the Trump-Vance campaign team failed to deny that a photograph which appeared to show the senator in drag during his university days was indeed him.
The photograph, reportedly taken at a party at Ivy League Yale University in 2012, showed a man in a skirt, wearing a blonde wig and sporting thick black eye-liner.
Yale School of Medicine paediatrics expert Travis Whitfill, the source of the photograph, which was shared with makeup artist Matt Bernstein, who then posted it on X, told The Daily Beast the image was “from a group chat of Vance’s fellow classmates and is from a friend of a friend… and was taken at a Halloween party”.
People were quick to create memes and branded Vance a hypocrite because he previously labelled anyone opposing bills aimed at limit gender-affirming care a “groomer” – a slur often weaponised by conservatives to smear drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community, by comparing them with paedophiles.
‘Childless cat ladies’
The comments about “childless cat ladies” have come up more than once during the race for the White House, and have been used by Democrats to criticise Vance.
He claimed women who do not have children are “miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, so want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”, are against “traditional families” and anti-family. He has also said childless Americans have “no physical commitment to the future of this country”.
Those singled out as “childless” include Harris, who is stepmother to husband Doug Emhoff’s two children. It was also aimed at transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who adopted twins with his husband in 2021.
The phrase was co-opted by Taylor Swift in her endorsement of Harris for president. “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” the singer wrote, signing her Instagram post off with: “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”
Misgendering himself
Just days ago, Vance misgendered himself at a rally, saying he was a wife to his own wife – ironic given his views on trans people which includes wanting to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youngsters.
A clip of the rally has been shared on social media. “Other than being a wife to this beautiful lady here and a father to our three kids, the greatest honour of my life has been running for this office of vice-president of the United States,” he can be seen telling supporters, who chuckled at his expense. He appeared not to have noticed the slip-of-tongue.
One X user responded: “So, he admits it: he’s half of a lesbian couple. Good for them.” Another mocked: “Congratulation to JD Vance and his transition.”
Others jokingly called him a “boy-wife” and said they didn’t have “JD Vance fluid gender identity” on their bingo card.
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