Kentucky Gov. Beshear takes jabs at JD Vance in his home state of Ohio

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, speaking in JD Vance’s home state of Ohio on Saturday, tore into the vice president, questioning his Appalachian roots and telling voters they “deserve better.”

The comments from Beshear — who is viewed as a rising star in the Democratic Party and has been floated as a potential 2028 presidential contender — came during remarks at a spring gala hosted by the Butler County Democratic Party in Middletown, Ohio.

The two-term Democratic governor has previously feuded with Vance, who is also considered a likely 2028 candidate. Beshear doubled down on his past criticisms of Vance on Saturday, including by saying the vice president “ain’t from Appalachia.”

“(Vance) wrote an entire book that trafficked his tired stereotypes about the people in my state, called the people who mined the coal that power the Industrial Revolution, helped us to win two world wars, he called them lazy,” Beshear said, referring to “Hillbilly Elegy,” which the governor described as a work of “poverty tourism.”

“Ohio deserved a much better senator than (JD Vance), and we all deserve a much better vice president,” Beshear said.

Vance was born and raised in Ohio but spent summers in his youth in eastern Kentucky. “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir that also attempts to explain the disaffection of White, working-class Americans, caused a sensation after Donald Trump won the Rust Belt states in 2016.

The vice president’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, suggested to The New York Times that Beshear was just after publicity.

“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?” Van Kirk said in a statement.

After making headlines for his leadership of the state through the Covid-19 pandemic, deadly tornadoes in 2021 and catastrophic flooding in 2022, Beshear was floated as a possible vice-presidential candidate for Kamala Harris in 2024. He worked to elevate his profile in the last year, launching a podcast and making more frequent cable news appearances.