JD Vance with Donald Trump.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
With Donald Trump getting elected as the next president of the United States, JD Vance is all set to become the first vice president with beard in nearly a century, the New York Post reported.
In the year 1933, Charles Curtis was the last vice president in the US who had a mustache. Charles Fairbanks, who was second in command in the Theodore Roosevelt administration from 1905-1909, had a beard like JD Vance.
The 40-year-old Senator, who is also a close ally of Trump, would be the third-youngest individual to hold the office in the US, also the first millennial to serve in such a high-ranking office.
As per a 2015 survey by the Oklahoma State University, the voters usually see men with beards and mustaches as being opposed to reproductive choice and “more supportive of gun rights, military spending, and the deployment of force," the publication further added.
When rumours had it that Vance’s beard might cost him the vice president’s chair, Trump dismissed all such speculations and told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade that Vance’s look was quite fashionable.
Trump said, "He looks good". "Looks like a young Abraham Lincoln."
Eight years ago, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump.
At first, Vance's hardcore conservative views and sometimes-awkward appearances on the trail gave Trump allies and donors pause. Democrats re-surfaced 2021comments in which Vance disparaged women without children as "childless cat ladies," potentially hurting the campaign's standing among women.
But as the race wore on, Vance showed some prowess at tailoring his message to his audience.
He was elected to the Senate in 2022, and earlier had gained huge recognition as the clean-shaven Hillbilly Elegy author in 2016.
Political observers say that more than just serving as a tangible sign, Vance's beard is also a sign of a generational shift in politics that is under way, a Politico report stated.
(With Reuters inputs)