“VP Vance has cast the deciding vote in the Senate to cut Medicaid, take away food assistance, blow up the deficit, and add tax breaks for the wealthiest,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeg posted on X. “This bill is unpopular because it is wrong. Congress votes this week, but it’s our voices — and our votes — that will have the final say.”

Even as Trump still has more than three years left in his final term, politicians on both sides of the aisle are already jockeying in the shadows to replace him. Although polling this early is not a reliable predictor for a presidential field still years away from breaking out into the open, Vance has led significantly in early GOP primary surveys.

A spokesperson for Vance did not respond to a request for comment. But the vice president has been a vocal cheerleader for his administration’s top policy priority, urging Republicans to pass the bill.

“The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits,” Vance said Monday. “The [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass.”

Since its introduction, the minority party has framed the spending bill as Trump’s plan to raise the cost of living and strip away health care for millions, with proposed Medicaid cuts also drawing trepidation from some moderate Republicans. But the shift toward the vice president following Vance’s vote on Tuesday was notable.

Democrats have quickly latched on to Vance’s own language around the bill, highlighting how the vice president said concerns around the “Medicaid minutiae” are “immaterial” compared with the bill’s funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and new immigration enforcement provisions.

“What happened to you @JDVance — author of Hillbilly Elegy — now shrugging off Medicaid cuts that will close rural hospitals and kick millions off healthcare as “minutiae?”’ Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted on X.

Despite intraparty fights on Capitol Hill, most congressional Republicans — and particularly those in the MAGA wing of the party — have hailed the spending bill as a major win in the battle to cut taxes and address illegal immigration, both of which were major promises of the Trump campaign in 2024.

One memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee told GOP members to think of the megabill as “more than a messaging opportunity; it’s a midterm roadmap.”

Pre-passage surveys have found the bill to be unpopular with Americans, but popular with the president’s MAGA base.

And Democrats are vowing to lord the bill’s passage over Vance indefinitely.

“JD Vance talks about turning the GOP into a party for working people. But he’s the biggest billionaire bootlicker of them all,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) — chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who has toured with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) — wrote on X. “When it mattered, he was the deciding vote to slash Medicaid to bits to pay for billionaire tax breaks. We’re never going to let him forget it.”