Fact-check: Here is how we know Vance’s statement that Trump did not lose in 2020 is Pants on Fire

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.

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 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 then-attorney general, 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."

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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. 

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.

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. "

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!

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