United States Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has skipped every Senate vote since he was selected to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate back in mid-July.
The total number of votes Vance has missed over the past 10 weeks stands at 38, with more votes likely to come up between now and Election Day.
It’s not unusual for a senator who is named the vice presidential candidate of a political party to miss votes, as their presence is needed on the campaign trail, particularly in close elections such as this year’s. Vice President Kamala Harris — currently the Democratic nominee for president — missed all 38 available votes she could have participated in during the 2020 presidential election, for example.
But notably, Vance is missing votes on the Senate floor regarding issues he and Trump are campaigning on, including an expansion of the child tax credit and a bill to protect the right to obtain in vitro fertilization (IVF). Voters may interpret the missed votes as an indication that Vance is only paying lip service to those proposals — and he may have to defend his failure to participate in Senate votes when he meets with Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), Harris’s running mate, in the vice presidential debate next week.
Notably, Vance’s attendance record wasn’t great before he was named the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee. From April until June, Vance missed nearly a fifth of all votes (22 percent). The freshman senator, who has only served in his elected position since January 2023, has never seen one of his sponsored bills passed by Congress.
If Trump and Vance win the election, Vance, as vice president of the United States, would have to serve as president of the Senate. If that happens, his inexperience within the upper house of Congress may show, as vice presidents have generally served far more than just two years in a government position. (Vance had never been elected to any post before winning his current Senate seat.)
Whether Trump/Vance or Harris/Walz wins, the next vice president will likely have to participate in numerous votes — as president of the Senate, their role is limited, but includes breaking ties that occur in that house. With the Senate likely to be near-evenly divided following this year’s elections, it’s possible that dozens of tie-breaking votes could occur within the next four years.
Indeed, the current makeup of the Senate has resulted in 33 tie-breaking votes since the start of 2021, with Harris breaking them all. That number is the highest of any vice president in history (even more than those who have served in the role for multiple terms), and is greater than 10 percent of all tie-breaker votes ever made by the 49 vice presidents since the Constitution was implemented.
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