If Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, his vice president pick could become the first to wear a beard in nearly a century.
J.D. Vance, the bearded Republican Ohio senator announced Monday as the former president’s running mate, is one of the few modern politicians who doesn’t favor a baby face.
Vance, who rose to public attention in 2016 with his best-selling autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy,” followed a code of conduct and maintained a clean-cut appearance.
But his beard was in full force when he was elected to the Senate in 2022, making him one of the few politicians in Congress with a beard.
By the mid-20th century, beards seemed to have fallen out of favor for politicians.
Charles Curtis was the last vice president to wear a mustache, serving under Herbert Hoover in 1933.
The last vice president to have a beard as thick as Vance’s was Charles Fairbanks, Teddy Roosevelt’s aide-de-camp from 1905 to 1909.
There were rumors that Vance’s unusual facial hair could cost him his new position as Trump’s running mate, according to Republican campaign officials. Tell the Bulwark “I just don’t like beards,” says the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
But Trump denied the speculation last week. Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade His fellow campaigners’ beards were in fashion.
“He looks good,” Trump said. “He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.”
Surveys have shown that voters equate beards with personality traits that politicians want to avoid, such as being aggressive, traditionalist and anti-feminist.
be A 2015 study by Oklahoma State University found that Voters see men with beards and mustaches as opposed to reproductive choice and “supporting gun rights, military spending and the deployment of force,” all of which apply to Vance.
