Mr. Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, sharply criticized Mr. Vance as both angle for potential presidential runs.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky on Saturday excoriated Vice President JD Vance as the “most arrogant politician I have ever seen,” escalating a yearslong rivalry between two potential 2028 presidential candidates who claim Appalachian roots.
Speaking at a local Democratic Party gala in the Ohio county where Mr. Vance grew up, Mr. Beshear accused the vice president of talking down to the people of Kentucky. For his part, the governor charged that the vice president had disappointed the people of Ohio, whom Mr. Vance represented in the Senate.
“Ohio deserved a much better senator than him, and we all deserve a much better vice president,” Governor Beshear, a term-limited Democrat, told the crowd at the event on Saturday night in Butler County, Ohio, according to audio of the event provided by his representatives.
Mr. Beshear, who is widely seen as a likely 2028 presidential candidate, assailed the vice president as an out-of-touch leader who he said made President Trump look comparatively humble. And he argued that “Hillbilly Elegy” — Mr. Vance’s well-read memoir about his youth in Kentucky and Ohio — amounted to “poverty tourism” and “trafficked in this tired stereotype” about the region.
“There is no one who will work harder, no matter what I am doing next year, to beat JD Vance in 2028,” vowed Mr. Beshear, who won re-election in 2023, a year before Mr. Trump carried his state by about 30 percentage points.
The vice president’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, suggested that Mr. Beshear was chasing headlines.