The vice president widely considered the front-runner for the next Republican presidential nomination has found out what the president has been telling allies about the size of his crowds.
Trump has been telling allies that Vice President JD Vance “has not drawn large numbers to events that he is headlining,” according to people with knowledge of the private conversations. The account surfaced on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, as the two men split the map in the final stretch before the Tuesday, Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Vance blamed the Iran war for his party’s midterm losses in a series of posts on X on Wednesday, Nov. 4, writing, “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.”
Vance added in the same series, “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.”
Democrats took control of both the Senate and the House in the Nov. 3 midterms, with most of the votes counted. Their Senate pickups reached into Republican strongholds, including Texas, South Carolina and Kansas.
Two Senate races remained uncalled as of Nov. 4. Counting in Alaska could take weeks, and Mississippi stood at 96% counted. Some House seats were also still being counted.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, called his party’s victory a “red, white and blue moment.”
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social at 10:37 p.m. on election night, Nov. 3: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” He told The Wall Street Journal in a Nov. 3 interview that Iran played a role in the losses and that he has no regrets, saying he “would have done it again.”
Trump told The New York Times the same day that he would accept the results and work with Democrats, and that he has “total veto power, so they have to come to us.” The White House posted on social media: “Trump is still your president.”
Trump’s Private Complaint About Vance
Vance is seen as the favorite for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, and Trump has repeatedly declined to endorse him outright. The White House sees no daylight between them.
White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said, “Donald Trump is the hardest working person in the country, followed by JD Vance,” adding that both men are raising money and working to get candidates elected.
Trump rallied in South Carolina on Thursday, Oct. 29, for Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., who was appointed after the death of her brother, Lindsey. Democrat Annie Andrews won the seat on Nov. 3. Vance flew to Texas the same day for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
Only About 300 Showed in Greensboro
Michael Whatley, the Republican candidate for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat, drew Vance to the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, N.C., on Sept. 21. A local NPR affiliate put the crowd at about 300 in a hall that holds 3,000.
Three days earlier, Vance drew a modest turnout at a Republican National Committee midterm event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Iowa Republican congressional candidate Chris McGowan warmed up the room at the Mid-America Center.
Vance also appeared for Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers at the LevelUp Training Complex, an indoor sports training facility in Monroe, Mich., and stood before a crowd in Howell, Mich., for the same candidate on Oct. 27. There are no official attendance figures to compare with Trump’s.
At a Vance rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, Mont., for Senate candidate Kurt Alme and House candidate Aaron Flint, a camera shot showed about 200 people in attendance, according to local reports. Two hecklers shouting about the Epstein files were removed, and Vance spoke for just under 30 minutes.
Rows of empty white folding chairs, set up outside a hangar at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport in Tyler, Texas, turned up in a widely shared post on X on Oct. 13, taken minutes before Vance’s program began. Trump’s political operation dismissed the post as fake news through its Trump War Room account on X, which also put out video of a crowd cheering the vice president’s arrival. How many people attended cannot be established from the available material.
The Empty Upper Deck in Vandalia
Trump told a North Carolina rally on Tuesday, Oct. 27, that he holds events every night and sees the same scene everywhere, with big screens outside and thousands and thousands of people. “It’s massive crowds,” he said. The venue was full that night, with nobody left waiting outside.
Other stops have left empty sections even at modest venues. Katie Rogers, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, reported that several areas of an upper deck sat empty at Trump’s Oct. 3 rally in Vandalia, Ohio.
Trump responded by calling for the arrest of journalists. He wrote on Truth Social that the paper and other outlets should be arrested for dishonesty and a disservice to the country. He posted that the arena was maxed out and that people in the upper sections always migrate down to the main floor.
A Kansas Rally Canceled, Then Restored
Staffers were on edge in the final days of the campaign, with unfavorable polls and negative stories feeding a dark mood for the president. Some GOP candidates kept their distance from him on the trail.
Trump called off his midday rally planned for Saturday, Oct. 31, at the regional airport in Salina, Kan., according to two White House officials and a Republican source. The Republican National Committee said he would spend a “72-hour sprint” holding rallies by phone instead.
Trump reversed course a day later and rescheduled back-to-back rallies for Sunday, Nov. 1, first in Dubuque, Iowa, then at the Salina airport. The stop marked his second Kansas trip in two weeks, after an Oct. 19 rally in Park City. Vance had campaigned for Sen. Roger Marshall in Topeka, Kan., on Oct. 26.
Trump also rallied at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Friday, Oct. 30, for gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody.