WOSU Public Media is partnering with Politifact to provide fact-checking reporting in Ohio for the 2024 campaign.
After weeks of avoiding a direct answer to the question of whether former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, finally got definitive.
But it was a false answer.
At an Oct. 16 event in Pennsylvania, a reporter asked Vance, "What message do you think it sends to independent voters when you do not directly answer the question, ‘Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?’"
The question drew boos from the crowd before Vance responded:
"On the election of 2020, I have answered this question directly a million times: No. I think there were serious problems in 2020. So, did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use, OK? I really couldn't care less if you agree or disagree with me on this issue."
Vance said that the media "will focus on court cases" or a "crazy conspiracy theory."
When rival vice presidential nominee Tim Walz asked Vance at the Oct. 1 debate whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, Vance said, "I’m focused on the future," and then focused on censorship. In a New York Times interview, Vance repeatedly would not answer questions about whether Trump lost but said he would have voted against certifying the results.
Related: PolitiFact: Prep for Tuesday night's vice presidential debate with fact-checks
Politicians are free to air concerns about elections, but whether Trump won or lost is not about word choice or opinion. Here is how we know Trump lost.
Biden won more states
Biden earned his victory by winning more votes in the Electoral College. Biden received 306 electoral votes compared with 232 for Trump. Biden’s path to victory included the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Although the popular vote doesn't determine who wins presidential elections, Biden received about 7 million more votes nationwide than Trump.
The 2020 election’s outcome was verified in many ways:
- States certified the results.
- Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits.
- Congress accepted the results on Jan. 6, 2021, after a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol.
- A group of conservatives, including former federal judges, examined every fraud and miscount claim by Trump and concluded that they "failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results."
Republicans in Trump’s own administration, including his attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, told Trump his statements about the "stolen" election were "bull—-." Republican state election officials including in Georgia said that the election was secure that Biden was the winner.
Ken Block, a former Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate who founded Simpatico Software Systems, wrote a USA Today op-ed explaining how the Trump campaign hired him to try to back up Trump’s postelection allegations. But he did not find what Trump wanted.
"What these claims don’t take into account is that voter fraud is detectable, quantifiable and verifiable," Block wrote in USA Today. "I have yet to see anyone offer up ‘evidence’ of voter fraud from the 2020 election that provides these three things."
Related: PolitiFact: Vance cherry-picks data to claim 81% murder spike amid Haitian influx in Springfield
PolitiFact has documented some examples of voter fraud in 2020, such as people casting votes on dead relatives’ behalf. But these instances were not enough to change the race’s outcome, and Republicans committed some voter crimes.
Vance’s statements about censorship don’t prove Trump won
We did not hear back from the Trump-Vance campaign, but the Republican National Committee sent PolitiFact news articles after the debate related to Vance’s statement about the Biden White House engaging in censorship.
"Censorship" commentary intensified in August when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that the Biden administration has pressured the company to censor some posts as part of the company’s content moderation. But experts have told PolitiFact that such pressure doesn’t amount to censorship, and the Supreme Court ruled in Biden’s favor in a lawsuit on the topic. The Trump administration similarly asked Twitter to remove some posts.
Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to a House committee that ultimately it was the company’s decision whether to remove content, but that "the government pressure was wrong" and he regretted not speaking up about it then. One Meta decision Zuckerberg cited — to temporarily demote an October 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop after an FBI warning about a potential Russian disinformation operation — happened when Trump was in office and running again for president.
Related: PolitiFact: ‘I am afraid’: The aftermath of misinformation on Haitians in Springfield
Justin Grimmer, a Stanford University political science professor who concluded claims about voter fraud lacked evidence, said that tech companies did stop citizens from sharing information about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which he views as a "blunder."
"However, this activity does not invalidate an election nor would it be legal grounds for objecting to an election," Grimmer said. "Similarly, I think it is unfortunate that the Russians hacked the Clinton campaign's email server in 2016. But, it is preposterous to suggest that hacking would invalidate Trump's victory. "
Our ruling
When asked whether Trump lost the 2020 election, Vance said "no." He added, "Did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use, OK?"
Determining a presidential election’s winner and loser is not about word choice. The 2020 election was one of the most scrutinized and litigated in history. Biden won enough electoral votes to win the election. Vance can wish Trump won the election, but he didn’t.
We rate this statement Pants on Fire!
Our Sources
- C-SPAN, Senator JD Vance Campaigns in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Oct. 16, 2024
- Email interview, Justin Grimmer, political science professor at Stanford University, Oct. 17, 2024
- Justin Grimmer and Abhinav Ramaswamy, An Evaluation of Fraud Claims from the 2020 Trump Election Contests, Jan. 16, 2024
- PolitiFact, Trump’s new ‘evidence’ that Biden lost in 2020 is ridiculously wrong (and dusty). We reviewed it. Jan. 5, 2024
- PolitiFact, Donald Trump falsely claims Georgia victory in recorded call, Jan. 4, 2021
- PolitiFact, How we know Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential race, Nov. 13, 2021
- PolitiFact, Trump falsely and prematurely claims 2020 presidential victory, Nov. 4, 2024
- PolitiFact, Joe Biden is right that more than 60 of Trump’s election lawsuits lacked merit, Jan. 8, 2021
- New York Times, Asked if He Thinks Trump Lost in 2020, Vance Finally Gives an Answer: No, Oct. 16, 2024
- Former President Donald Trump, Truth Social, Jan. 2, 2024
- Anonymous, Summary of Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election in the Swing States, Jan. 2, 2024
- Ken Block op-ed in USA Today, Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found 2020 election wasn't stolen., Jan. 2, 2024
- The Washington Post, Trump lawyers’ doozy of a filing on voter fraud, Jan. 3, 2024
- Georgia Secretary of State, State Election Board Clears Fulton County "Ballot Suitcase" Investigation; Report Finds No Evidence of Conspiracy, No Fraud, June 20, 2023
- Senator John Danforth, Benjamin Ginsberg, The Honorable Thomas B. Griffith, David Hoppe, The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, The Honorable Michael W. McConnell, The Honorable Theodore B. Olson, Senator Gordon H. Smith, Lost, Not Stolen, July 2022
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Key election security showdown expected in meeting at Capitol, July 27, 2023
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Investigation blames human error for issues in Fulton election audit, March 16, 2022
- Texas Tribune, Leaders of Texas-based activist group True the Vote accused of using donations for personal gain, June 5, 2023
- Email interview, Mike Hassinger, Georgia Secretary of State spokesperson, Jan. 4, 2024
- Telephone interview, Justin Grimmer, political science professor at Stanford University, Jan. 4, 2024
- Email interview, Ken Block, owner of Simpatico Software Systems and author of "Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data That Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections," Jan. 4, 2024
- Email interview, Nick Custodio, deputy commissioner for chairperson Lisa Deeley and spokesperson for the Philadelphia City Commissioners office, Jan. 5, 2024
- Email interview, Paul Bender, Arizona State University law professor, Jan. 4, 2024
- PolitiFact, "Ted Cruz falsely claims Philadelphia is counting votes in ‘shroud of darkness’," Nov. 6, 2020
- PolitiFact, "Claim that Wisconsin official Meagan Wolfe allowed absentee drop boxes, ballot harvesting is false," Nov. 8, 2023
- PolitiFact, "Trump’s wrong claim that election observers were barred in Pennsylvania, Michigan," Nov. 12, 2020
- PolitiFact, "No, suspected voter registration irregularities in Michigan did not result in 2020 election fraud," Aug. 14, 2023
- The Associated Press, "No major problems with ballot drop boxes in 2020, AP finds," July 17, 2022
- The Associated Press, "Wisconsin Supreme Court disallows absentee ballot drop boxes," July 8, 2022
- Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, Order on canvassing observation, Nov. 5, 2020
- Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, July 8, 2022