President Donald Trump‘s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which extends $3.8 trillion tax cuts and slashes more than $1 trillion in Medicaid and SNAP benefits, would’ve died on a legislative vine had JD Vance, his vice president, not cast his tie-breaking 51-50 U.S. Senate vote.
While Trump and his party are currently praising Vance’s role in advancing the unpopular and potentially controversial bill, Democrats hope to use Vance’s consequential vote against him should he decide to run for president, as he is expected to. A CPAC straw poll found that Vance is an overwhelming favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2028.
Republicans did it to former Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2024 presidential campaign. Trump and Republicans repeatedly (some argue effectively) called out Harris’ tie-breaking votes and tethered them to what they described as President Joe Biden’s inflationary policies that drove up the cost of living.
“Kamala cast the tie-breaking vote that gave us the worst inflation in American history,” Trump said during a campaign stop in August 2024. While many pundits and analysts continue to dissect the outcome of the 2024 election, it is clear Harris’ ties to the Biden administration played a significant role in her defeat.
Considering President Trump is essentially a lame duck president and will leave office after his term ends on Jan. 20, 2029, Democrats see an opportunity to return the favor in the upcoming election cycles, using Vance’s tie-breaking vote—and his own words—against him and the Republican Party writ large.
“JD Vance owns the big, ugly bill with his tie-breaking vote, unequivocally,” said Reecie Colbert, a Democratic strategist and host of Sirius XM’s “The Reecie Colbert Show.”
Colbert told theGrio, “He cast the deciding vote on the most detrimental blow to the social safety net this country has ever seen, and it will come back to haunt him.”
Most Americans, including 57% of those polled by Data for Progress, say they oppose the provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” In a post on X, Vance dismissed concerns about as many as 17 million Americans potentially losing their health insurance if the legislation becomes law, calling it “immaterial.”
“That is the easiest sound bite for Democrats to run with,” said Colbert.
Democrats tell theGrio that Vance’s tie-breaking vote for the BBB doesn’t compare to those cast by Vice President Harris, who was the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which included historic climate investments, and to advance the American Rescue Plan that helped the country recover from the destabilizing COVID-19 pandemic. Harris also holds the record for most tie-breaking votes by any U.S. vice president in history, with a total 33.
Democratic strategist Joel Payne said Harris’ tie-breaking votes created jobs and boosted industries, all while being paid for, unlike the Big Beautiful Bill, which is estimated to add close to $4 trillion to the national debt.
“What JD Vance and Republicans are doing is like an unpaid-for wealth transfer from working-class people to the wealthy…it’s just not the same,” Payne told theGrio. However, he acknowledged, “Republicans were able to weaponize [tie-breaking votes] against Kamala Harris.”
Payne predicts Vance will have a harder time recovering from his vice presidency under Trump than Harris should he seek higher office.
Unlike President Trump, who Payne described as a “skilled communicator” with “100% name ID,” Vance is relatively unknown to Americans. He explained, “It’s another thing where people don’t know who you are, and this is one of the first things that they will learn about you.”
Given the blind loyalty to Trump that Vance and Republicans must have in their party, Payne predicted, “JD Vance is going to have a hard time both claiming ownership and also distancing himself from the worst parts of this piece of legislation.”
Hyma Moore, a former Democratic National Committee chief of staff to former chairman Jaime Harrison, told theGrio the political fallout for Vance depends on the public’s reaction and the Republican Party’s performance in the 2026 midterm elections.
“Democrats are going to spend a whole lot of time and a whole lot of money making sure that, all of 2027, people are reminded that he cast this vote that took away their Medicaid or lessened their SNAP benefits,” said Moore. However, he stoically warned, “I don’t think it’s going to be as big of an issue right now, for JD Vance, as it could be if enough people die.”
While he’s unsure whether or not Vance will feel any political blowback for his tie-breaking vote, he does see this moment as an opportunity to rehabilitate Kamala Harris’ record as vice president, which included “some of the most significant tie-breaking votes in the history of the Senate.”
“Had we not passed those bills at that time, in that way, the country would look a lot different now,” he argued. “A lot more people would not be alive. We would likely be in a recession. Big American companies would’ve closed. Small businesses would’ve closed. City governments would be in default. The crime rate would not have gone down.”
Unlike Trump, who is arguably a master at selling his ideas or perceived accomplishments, Moore said Democrats’ “biggest failure” was “not celebrating those bills in real time the way they should have.” He said Democrats must keep that in mind as they look ahead.
“This battle that we’re in right now. We’ve lost this one, and we’re now turning the pace to the new battle,” said Moore. “We’ve got to prepare not just for this battle that’s happening tomorrow, but for the battle for next month, the battle for the fall, and then for 2026.”
In the meantime, Democrats are hitting the airwaves and the pavements to get their message out to the public about what they say are tax and budget cuts that will cost lives.
“They have the capacity to do that, but they have to be relentless,” said Colbert, who said that while Vance may be the target in 2028, Democrats must also keep the focus on President Trump.
“It’s important to remind people that this is a promise broken by Donald Trump,” she said. “He said that he did not want to touch Medicaid. He said that he did not want to touch these programs, and this is exactly what they’re doing–they’re gutting it.”
