Vance took a social media break for Lent. Here’s how his posts evolved over the year

But an analysis of his social media activity from January to September of this year shows a noticeable shift in how often he posts and what he chooses to share, with the vice president gradually moving away from, but not completely shedding, his combative online persona.Second lady Usha Vance revealed in an August Fox News interview that the best political advice she has given her husband is to take a break from social media. Usha Vance said that while she has long encouraged JD Vance to take a step back from the internet, he formally took a pause during Lent, the 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and reflection observed by Christians ahead of Easter. Vance has been widely viewed as the GOP’s candidate in the 2028 presidential election. Social media has become the prime opportunity for candidates to reach a younger audience, making an active online persona a must-have for anyone seeking higher office. A Washington Examiner review of Vance’s X posts from his personal account before, during, and after Lent shows that his activity declined sharply during the observance and remained relatively subdued in the following months. His account also took a different tone, increasingly emphasizing his official responsibilities, family, and faith, rather than the political disputes that once dominated his feed.Before Lent: Frequent posting and virality Vance began 2026 with a steady stream of political commentary, defending U.S. forces’ capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Vance posted a thorough response detailing what he views as the justification for the operations, including Venezuela’s role in trafficking fentanyl and cocaine into the U.S. and “stealing” American oil. The post achieved 13 million views.Following the Venezuela operation, the vice president’s posts in January mainly focused on immigration policies in the midst of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. In defending ICE’s movements, Vance often responded to criticism of the agency and its officers.January was by far his busiest month of 2026 on X, with 46 posts in total.The vice president was particularly active following the fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7 by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis. He chimed into the conversation on the day of the incident and made 20 posts in January referencing the shooting and subsequent unrest in Minneapolis.“You can accept that this woman’s death is a tragedy while acknowledging it’s a tragedy of her own making,” he posted on the day of Good’s death. “Don’t illegally interfere in federal law enforcement operations and try to run over our officers with your car. It’s really that simple.”He repeatedly defended the officer’s actions, challenged accounts of the shooting, and accused news agencies of misleading the public, with his busiest day of the month falling on Jan. 9, when he made six posts, mostly about the shooting and immigration enforcement.That day also produced his most widely viewed post of the month, in response to the Department of Homeland Security announcing the arrests of illegal immigrants in Minnesota, and accused national Democrats of endangering federal law enforcement officers.“National democrats are going to get our law enforcement killed if they don’t stop lying about this issue and the people working to keep us safe,” he said in the post that garnered over 37 million views, according to X analytics. Another post defending the officer in the incident with Good and criticizing news coverage attracted 35 million views, while a lengthy Jan. 14 defense of the administration’s deportation practices drew 33 million.The vice president also occasionally embraced a lighter tone. He mocked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new food pyramid by suggesting it should include ice cream, drawing 11 million views.Later in the month, Vance compared Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) questioning of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to watching “Forest Gump argue with Isaac Newton,” a post that drew 12 million views. February brought a sharp decline in activity. Throughout the whole month, Vance posted 16 times, with the most being three times in one day.Vance published just eight posts between Feb. 1 and Feb. 17, including an endorsement in an Ohio state race, praise for one of Rubio’s speeches, and criticism of Democrats over immigration. The frequent commentary slowing down at the start of February reflects the second lady’s revealing that Vance took a social media break during the religious observance. During Lent: Taking care of business During Lent, which took place from Feb. 18 until April 2, Vance made 23 posts and replied to several others, averaging roughly one every two days. Vance’s tone also appeared to change as, rather than entering online arguments with other users, Vance used his platform to circulate clips from his speeches, promote Trump policies, and highlight his responsibilities as vice president. However, there were exceptions.On Feb. 20, Vance sharply criticized a Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s tariffs, calling the decision “lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple.” The post drew 5.7 million views and was among his most widely viewed during Lent.His most widely viewed post during the observance came on March 2, when he defended the administration’s military operation against Iran, assuring Americans that Trump would not involve the country in a prolonged conflict without a clear objective. The post drew 6.2 million views.Otherwise, Vance’s March activity largely centered on the administration’s legislative policy priorities, particularly the SAVE America Act and the newly established White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Trump had tapped Vance as his anti-fraud czar during his State of the Union address in late February.FOR TRUMP AND VANCE, IRAN ISN’T A FOREVER WAR — OR A WAR AT ALLThe shift was especially apparent in the latter half of the month. Several posts promoted efforts to combat fraud, while others celebrated his wife’s new podcast and offered support to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles following her cancer diagnosis. Vance ended March by announcing his forthcoming book, Communion, about his finding the Catholic faith, which garnered about 3 million views. By early April, the posts had taken on a largely administrative tone. He highlighted the swearing-in of Colin McDonald to lead the Justice Department’s fraud task force and a federal crackdown on healthcare fraud, neither post approaching the attention his posts in January generated.The pattern suggests that Vance had not abandoned social media entirely during Lent. Instead, his account had become a less combative platform for communicating official business. Notably, the vice president did not post about the Iran war beyond his initial posts and others in which he participated in the dignified transfer of six soldiers killed in the opening days of the conflict.When Usha Vance described her husband’s social media break, she did not clarify whether he was taking a break from posting content or viewing content. If Vance was taking a break entirely from posting content, his X posts during Lent may have been made by someone in his office. The Washington Examiner reached out to Vance’s office for commentAfter Lent: Faith, Family, Fraud Vance’s social media posts after his Lent break, from early April through mid-August, can largely be summarized in three “F” words: faith, family, and fraud.His comparatively reserved approach continued in the weeks immediately following Lent, with much of his April activity devoted to promoting the administration’s fraud investigations.Lent ended on April 5, and there were 14 total posts throughout the month of April. Several posts were brief acknowledgments of announcements from other administration officials, with some attracting fewer than 1 million views.However, one of his most widely viewed posts in April showed that Vance had not entirely shed his contentious political online persona. On April 18, amid public disagreements between Trump and Pope Leo XIV, Vance weighed in with a more conciliatory message, acknowledging that disagreements between the White House and the Catholic Church were inevitable.“While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict–and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen–the reality is often much more complicated,” he said. “Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day. The President–and the entire administration–work to apply those moral principles in a messy world. He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”The post attracted 8.3 million views, substantially more than most of his other April posts.Throughout the summer, from May through August, Vance focused most of his social media postings on his fraud-fighting efforts and the work of the White House anti-fraud task force to Eliminate Fraud. “We’ve already uncovered tens of billions of dollars in defrauded taxpayer money, prosecuted dozens of fraudsters, and stopped billions in suspicious payments. And we’re just getting started,” Vance wrote on X for the second-month anniversary of the task force’s creation, in a post that received 2.3 million views.Vance made posts either about his anti-fraud work or referencing fraud 14 times out of 29 posts in May, 10 times out of 30 posts in June, seven times out of 20 posts in July, and four times out of 17 posts in August. Vance’s posting also decreased in July and August compared to May and June, with his 17 posts in August marking a drastic contrast to his 46 posts in January. Not only did this decrease follow his Lent social media break, the change also came around the same time when he and his wife had their fourth son, Alec, in mid-July.The X post announcing the birth of their son received the second-most views of any post over the summer, with 16.9 million views. Vance’s most-viewed post of the summer was a photo of JD and Usha Vance as a young couple that he posted for their 12-year wedding anniversary, which received over 27 million views.Vance posted repeatedly about his family and his faith following his Lent social media hiatus. Vance referenced either his faith or family in over 20 of his X posts from the summer, the most occurring in the month of June, when he posted about them nine times.In late June, he shared a video clip of a June interview he did with Steve Bartlett, the host of the Diary of a CEO podcast, in which he spoke about how he wished his wife Usha had met his grandmother, whom he called his “mamaw,” before she passed. He described how the two of them are similar yet different at the same time.“They’re both incredibly smart; they’re incredibly blunt people,” Vance said in the clip he posted.“But they came from such different worlds and I think my grandmother would be fascinated by her. That is the biggest regret about her death is that – if she was the most important person in my life for the first 20 years, Usha is the most important for the rest of it – I really wish those two people could have met, because they’re amazing people,” Vance continued.In terms of politically relevant posts, Vance shared a few posts about the Iran War and a handful of midterm campaign-related posts throughout the summer.Vance, who has been tasked by Trump to lead many of the negotiations for peace in the war, did not mention the Iran war once in any posts in May. He posted five times about the war in June, largely only to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding negotiations, which he was a part of. He only referenced the combat and airstrikes in the war one time in June, particularly to explain why the U.S. had struck Iran again.“Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,” Vance said in a post in which he also quoted a U.S. Central Command statement on U.S. strikes in late June. Vance posted about the war once in July to respond to what he called a “fake news” story about negotiations, and zero times in August.FOR CLICK-HUNGRY VANCE, FRAUD CZAR IS A PERFECT FITIn terms of his select midterm-related posts, Vance largely posted images and videos of him stumping for candidates on the campaign trail in Ohio, Iowa, and Maine. Vance had only three main posts over the summer in his original commentary style, and they each received millions of views. One was a post ripping a political strategist over his commentary about the price of a burrito, one was a post about Usha Vance bargaining for a dress, and one was a post about the murder of Henry Nowak in the United Kingdom, which sparked a large conversation about European immigration controls.Vance hits the campaign trail As the midterm elections approached, Vance began September by returning to his familiar political attacks, using his social media account to promote the Trump administration’s accomplishments and draw contrasts with Democrats.On Sept. 3, Vance shared a clip from a White House briefing in which he characterized the midterm elections as a choice between “crazy vs common sense,” accusing Democrats of supporting open borders, higher taxes, and policies that benefit criminals. He kept coming back to this message throughout the month.Vance touted the administration’s economic policies throughout the month, crediting Trump tariffs, tax cuts, and immigration crackdown for job growth, drawing millions of views on these posts. By mid-September, Vance’s online activity increasingly reflected his role as a Republican campaign surrogate. He shared posts touting an appearance in Kansas for Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), while also tapping into his comedic side to post a meme of himself reacting to Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico naming his favorite drag queen.In addition to Kansas, Vance touted his campaign stops in states like Iowa, North Carolina, and Texas, boosting his commentary supporting American farmers and workers. In his posts on the campaign trail, Vance largely stuck to a pro-American worker, pro-American Dream message. He did not mention Iran once in his postings in September.“The choice that we’re facing is stark,” Vance said in a post that largely encompasses his midterm message. “It is common sense versus craziness. It’s about keeping taxes low. It’s about rooting out fraud. It’s about making it easier for hardworking American families to buy a home, to buy the medications they need, to put food on the table. It’s about keeping the southern border closed.”Vance’s Year on X in Review Vance’s social media habits suggest that his Lenten break marked more than a temporary reduction in posting. Although he gradually returned to political commentary, his account never fully returned to the pace or style that characterized the beginning of the year. The shift was particularly apparent in the posts that generated the most attention. While his January attacks on Democrats and defense of immigration enforcement attracted tens of millions of views, some of his most popular posts over the summer centered on his family, including the welcoming of his fourth child and his wedding anniversary.That does not mean Vance abandoned his willingness to provoke political opponents. His return to campaign-related attacks in September suggests that the vice president remains comfortable using his social media to play politics. Still, the analysis points to a broader change in how Vance uses his platform.HOW 2028 CONTENDERS ARE BOOSTING THEIR BONA FIDES DURING MIDTERM SEASONA cornerstone of Vance’s social media presence in 2026 was his role leading the anti-fraud task force. When thinking of this in the context of the 2028 presidential elections, it is important to note that this task force is, in a sense, Vance’s “thing,” and his social media provides a dedicated spot for him to journal his progress in the role.What began as a temporary break encouraged by his wife appears to have evolved into a more selective approach to social media, with the vice president increasingly balancing his reputation as an outspoken political combatant against his responsibilities as the nation’s second-highest-ranking official.