JD Vance Could Be The First VP In Decades With This Specific Feature

Quick — name a United States vice president who had a beard. If you can't, it's probably because there hasn't been one in your lifetime. That could change should former president Donald Trump win re-election in November 2024, as his vice presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, sports a beard. 

The term "beard barrier" refers to the fact that presidents and vice presidents who have won elections in the modern era have primarily been clean-shaven. Republican Charles Curtis was the last vice president with regular facial hair when he was in office from 1929 to 1933, as he had a mustache. The last vice president with a full beard was Republican Schuyler Colfax, who was in office from 1869 to 1873.

So should Vance get out the razor? Well, winning a presidential election is a little complicated, and it might not matter what he looks like. Political analysts say that the vice-presidential pick really doesn't affect the way the public votes. "There is no historical evidence that vice presidential nominations influence the outcome, at least in many decades," said Allan Lichtman, history professor and political analyst told Newsweek, referring to the George H.W. Bush-Dan Quayle ticket in 1988 and the Bill Clinton-Al Gore ticket in 1992 as examples. "Even if you were thinking about picking someone who is politically helpful, at least the methodology would be to pick up someone from a key swing state," Lichtman said. "[Trump] didn't do that."

When it comes to a president with a full beard, one also has to go back to the 1880s to Benjamin Harrison, the nation's 23rd president from 1889 to 1893, who rocked well-groomed facial hair. In 1908, newly elected president William Howard Taft must've wowed voters with his thick handlebar mustache. It seems surprising that beards seem to be a no-go for the highest political officials in the United States, especially given their popular resurgence in the early 2010s. However, Stanford Law School professor Richard T. Ford told the New York Times that people considered clean-shaven politicians more in touch with modern times and savvy city-dwellers. "Beards became associated with rural lifestyles ('mountain men'), old men, college professors, and the counterculture. "Ford said. "None of those associations were likely to appeal to a mass electorate." 

J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's running mate in 2024, has gone without facial hair before. He had been shaving regularly around the time he was promoting his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" in 2016, but grew in the beard while campaigning for Senate in 2022. It seems that Trump approves of Vance's newer look, as he once said Vance "looks like a young Abraham Lincoln" (via AP). 

Of course, some people would be in favor of at least one former president having a beard — even if they have to Photoshop it on him.

In 2006, then-future president Barack Obama told The Hill that it wasn't that he didn't want to grow a beard, but that he couldn't. "I can't grow facial hair ... I get whiskers," he said (via HuffPost). Luckily, thanks to the magic of photo-editing software, we now have an idea of what Obama would look like if he could grow a full beard. Entertainment brand The Shade Room created the viral image and the internet went crazy.

Obama with a beard. My #BlackHistoryMonth is complete😍 pic.twitter.com/oHSutEhV1e

— Adrienne Annice 🍑🫐🐦🐝 (@LadyA08) February 10, 2018

Columnist R. Eric Thomas wrote about the speculative photo for Elle in 2018, saying that he was glad it was fake because he wasn't sure the world could handle such a thirst trap. "I'm not sure how much silver foxier we can handle him. This lewk puts us all at SexyCon 4," he wrote. "That said, if you ever want to try out a beard, Barack, the nation is absolutely here for it."

A year earlier, GQ also tried their hand at making over the former president. At the time, Obama was preparing to leave office, and columnist Liza Corsillo wrote: "We hope that he takes full advantage of his newfound joblessness to grow a massive retirement beard. Once President Obama leaves office, we don't want to see him all buttoned up. We want to see him enjoying himself." They suggested six different facial hair options based on famous bearded men, such as actor Donald Glover, comedian Reggie Watts, and golfer Tiger Woods. (For what it's worth, we think The Shade Room had the right idea.)