As Trump eyes VP hopefuls, JD Vance is the MAGA king in the Senate (2024)

WASHINGTON — JD Vance has been in the Senate for less than two years. But in that short time, he has already separated himself as the most consistently MAGA-aligned of the three GOP senators on former President Donald Trump's shortlist for a running mate.

Vance, an Ohio Republican, has distinguished himself as a harsh critic of American engagement in foreign conflicts and as a populist on most domestic issues. When he splits from the other senators Trump is eyeballing for his ticket — Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina — it is often by embracing GOP base positions at the expense of establishment priorities such as funding government operations, according to an NBC News analysis of their voting records compiled by Congressional Quarterly.

Vance has the advantage of a short record — and one that has been built entirely in the Trump era — compared to Rubio and Scott, who cast thousands of votes before Vance arrived in the Senate in January 2023.

For the most part, the trio votes in unison. But over more than 500 roll call votes since Vance was elected, he has parted with Rubio and Scott 28 times when all three have been present. Rubio has opposed a position taken by Vance and Scott 22 times. Scott has made himself the odd man out just 11 times.

Vance's adherence to MAGA activists' preferences, particularly on foreign aid and curbing federal spending, is one of the reasons he is popular enough with the base to have emerged as a leading favorite, along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, to land in the VP slot on Trump's ticket. Donald Trump Jr., the former president's eldest son and a figure trusted by his father's base, is publicly advocating for Vance.

Trump said this weekend that he knows whom he will choose, but he is waiting to make an announcement. NBC News reported Friday that Burgum and Vance are the leading candidates, according to interviews with more than a dozen sources wired into the process, and that Rubio remains in contention.

Trump's aides haven't divulged much about his preferences or who is likely to be tapped. Nor are they hinting at the metrics he's using beyond the idea that the vice presidential candidate will be someone he believes could ably serve as president.

"As President Trump has said himself, the top criteria in selecting a vice president is a strong leader who will make a great president for eight years after his next four-year term concludes," Trump spokesman Brian Hughes said. "But anyone telling you they know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying unless that person is named Donald J. Trump."

All three of the senators on the roster have broken with Trump on policy and rhetoric over his nine years as president or as a candidate for that job. While Scott carefully avoided bruising commentary about Trump during his primary campaign against him this year, Rubio and Vance have delivered scalding assessments of him in the past.

In a private message in 2016, Vance apparently wondered whether Trump was more "a cynical a--hole like Nixon" or "America's Hitler." When Rubio and Trump were pitted against each other for the GOP presidential nomination that year, Rubio ridiculed Trump for having "small hands" and a "spray tan."

In terms of substance, though, nothing speaks louder than a voting record — which is why presidential and vice presidential hopefuls no longer spend as much time accruing experience in the Senate as they once did. Barack Obama ran successfully for president during his first term in the Senate. Rubio lost to Trump in the GOP primaries before he won his second term. Vice President Kamala Harris was in her first term when Joe Biden tapped her to run with him in 2020.

During Trump's presidency, Rubio and Scott each voted with him about 90% of the time, with Scott slightly more likely to do so, according to Fivethirtyeight.com. Their aides declined to comment for this article.

Vance, a best-selling author before he was elected to the Senate, has positioned himself as a policy wonk amid the MAGA crowd.

"JD is interesting policywise because he is someone who reflects the viewpoints of the base in his voting record but is also, and this is unique, a real-deal, deep policy thinker," an ally said.

He has a 93% lifetime score from the conservative Heritage Action group, which is above those of Scott (85%) and Rubio (81%).

A year ago, Vance was one of 11 senators to vote against the annual bill authorizing and prioritizing the military's operations. He said he did so because the measure "commits the United States to years of additional military aid for the war in Ukraine."

Rubio and Scott voted with the majority of Republicans and the overwhelming majority of the Senate to pass the policy bill for the Defense Department.

While Republican lawmakers remain divided over their tax dollars' funding Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, many MAGA voters oppose the U.S. efforts to subsidize the Ukrainian military in eastern Europe. Trump himself didn't vocally oppose the latest round of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which the Senate passed in April. Vance and Rubio voted against the measure. And while Scott wasn't present for that vote, he issued a statement saying he supported it.

Last year, Vance broke from Rubio, Scott and most other Republicans in backing a bipartisan bill that would have repealed the use-of-force resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. The bill passed 66-30, with 18 Republicans voting in favor of it and all 30 "no" votes coming from the GOP.

This January, Vance joined a breakaway group of senators who tried and failed to block a measure that averted a partial government shutdown. Rubio voted for final passage of the bill, along with most senators in both parties, while Scott missed the roll call. Willingness to shut down all or part of the federal government — as Trump demonstrated during his presidency — has become a key litmus test for MAGA voters.

Long voting records have a way of haunting lawmakers. Rubio, for example, was a vocal supporter at one time of a so-called comprehensive immigration reform measure that would have put more focus on securing the U.S. border with Mexico while also creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

He abandoned that position shortly thereafter, opposing the path to citizenship in his 2016 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. In the Trump era, the idea has become all but obsolete within the GOP, but Rubio's record remains on the books.

He also has a long record of supporting American military and foreign aid efforts abroad, and he voted to rebuke the Trump administration for lifting sanctions on Rusal, the Russian aluminum behemoth, even after the Treasury Department cut a deal with the company to reduce the ownership stake of oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Rubio and Scott differed in how they voted on Biden's reappointment of Jerome Powell to serve another four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Rubio voted against another term for Powell, while Scott voted for confirmation (Rubio voted against Powell's initial nomination by Trump in 2018, while Scott didn't vote).

In January 2021, Rubio and Scott both voted to kill objections to certifying presidential electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. They also both voted to override Trump's veto of the annual defense policy bill in 2020 and were among the Republican senators who fired a brushback pitch by voting for a nonbinding amendment opposing the "precipitous withdrawal of United States forces" after Trump's 2018 decisions to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Syria and Afghanistan.

Scott defied Trump by voting against the first emergency coronavirus relief bill in March 2020. Rubio voted for the measure, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and received Trump's signature. Trump's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically endorsing government social distancing and masking guidelines that pinched commerce to try to slow the spread of the disease, has been criticized by some in his own party.

But few have revisited that first bill, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cost $192 billion over a decade — a small fraction of the trillions of dollars ultimately spent to fight the effects of the pandemic.

Scott also voted against a Trump-backed bill funding most government agencies from May through September 2017, a measure that Rubio voted to pass and which became law.

Scott has touted his work with Trump on legislation during Trump's presidency, noting his role in helping craft the 2017 tax cuts and his work on so-called opportunity zones to drive investments to struggling communities.

Ultimately, it's not clear what direct role the three senators' voting records have played in Trump's process, but they certainly inform perceptions of them within the Republican Party and outside it.