Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky on Saturday excoriated Vice President JD Vance as the “most arrogant politician I have ever seen,” escalating a yearslong rivalry between two potential 2028 presidential candidates who claim Appalachian roots.
Speaking at a local Democratic Party gala in the Ohio county where Mr. Vance grew up, Mr. Beshear accused the vice president of talking down to the people of Kentucky. For his part, the governor charged that the vice president had disappointed the people of Ohio, whom Mr. Vance represented in the Senate.
“Ohio deserved a much better senator than him, and we all deserve a much better vice president,” Governor Beshear, a term-limited Democrat, told the crowd at the event on Saturday night in Butler County, Ohio, according to audio of the event provided by his representatives.
Mr. Beshear, who is widely seen as a likely 2028 presidential candidate, assailed the vice president as an “out-of-touch” leader who he said made President Trump look comparatively humble. And he argued that “Hillbilly Elegy” — Mr. Vance’s well-read memoir about his youth in Kentucky and Ohio — amounted to “poverty tourism” and “trafficked in this tired stereotype” about the region.
“There is no one who will work harder, no matter what I am doing next year, to beat JD Vance in 2028,” vowed Mr. Beshear, who won re-election in 2023, a year before Mr. Trump carried his state by about 30 percentage points.
The vice president’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, suggested that Mr. Beshear was chasing headlines.
“Every time Andy Beshear attacks the vice president to try to get himself publicity, he ends up humiliating himself in the process, but maybe that’s something he’s into?” Ms. Van Kirk said in a statement.
Mr. Beshear is one of many Democrats who has signaled interest in running for president in what is viewed as a wide-open 2028 primary. On the Republican side, Mr. Vance has said “it feels so premature” to discuss 2028. But he is also seen in his party as angling for a presidential run, and he has been seeking to deepen his ties inside the MAGA movement.
Mr. Beshear, 48, and Mr. Vance, 41, have fought over the authenticity of the vice president’s origin story, abortion access and even their soda preferences.
Mr. Beshear has repeatedly accused Mr. Vance of overstating his blue-collar roots and misrepresenting himself as a product of Appalachia. Mr. Vance has family roots in Kentucky but was primarily raised in Middletown, Ohio, which is near Cincinnati and is not generally considered to be part of Appalachia.
“Part of why I’m here is because this is where JD Vance is actually from,” Mr. Beshear said on Saturday night. “Instead of rural Kentucky where he pretends to be from.”
During the 2024 presidential race, Mr. Beshear, a strong proponent of abortion access, targeted Mr. Vance over his support for stringent abortion restrictions, saying that Mr. Vance should “go through” a pregnancy resulting from rape. Mr. Vance responded on social media by calling Mr. Beshear a “disgusting person.”
Earlier in 2024, Mr. Beshear criticized Mr. Vance for drinking Diet Mountain Dew, saying that Ale-8-One was the true soda of Kentuckians. “Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?” Mr. Beshear told CNN. (He later backtracked, apologizing to drinkers of Diet Mountain Dew and saying, “Sometimes I’ve gone over the line.”)
Mr. Trump has floated Mr. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential Republican presidential nominees for 2028.
Last summer, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Vance would “most likely” succeed him as the leader of the MAGA movement. But the president has recently embraced overseas interventions that have given Mr. Rubio, a foreign policy hawk, a particularly prominent role in the administration.
Kathy Wyenandt, the chair of the Butler County Democratic Party, said that local Democrats were “all anticipating” that Mr. Beshear would run for president in 2028. She said the governor’s visit made “perfect sense” given the county’s ties to Mr. Vance, and she claimed that the vice president had neglected Middletown, which is in Butler County.
“Middletown could really use the support of a sitting vice president,” Ms. Wyenandt said.
Alex Triantafilou, the chair of the Ohio Republican Party, said that the claim was “ridiculous” and that Mr. Vance was in Ohio “all the time.”
He argued that Mr. Beshear was “wasting his time” in Ohio, which a Democrat has not carried in a presidential election since 2012.
“This idea that Beshear will somehow gain traction by making headlines is preposterous,” Mr. Triantafilou said. “Vice President Vance is extremely popular in this state, and I doubt that anything will change that.”
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