Vance’s car seat problems add to the GOP candidate’s headaches

Heading into the year’s only vice presidential debate, Sen. J.D. Vance has some work to do: The latest polls suggest that voters who know the Ohio Republican don’t like him much.

As we wrote last week, the latest NBC News poll found that 32% of Americans had a positive impression of the Ohioan, while 45% had a negative opinion of him. Of all the people in the nationwide study, literally no one finished below Vance.

Much of this likely stems from Vance’s unfortunate comments about “childless cat ladies” and related rhetoric about childless American families, coupled with his Donald Trump makeover.

But this is not the only problem for the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate. The New York Times reported:

In March 2023 – by which time Vance’s career in elected office had lasted approximately two months – the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on consumer protections in air travel. The newest and youngest member of the panel spent some time analyzing the costs and benefits.

“My concern here is that in the name of improved safety – and I have no doubt that it is a marginal improvement in safety – we are actually proposing a change that, with very little marginal improvement, would make the safety situation much worse for parents,” Vance said.

The Republican then returned to familiar territory. “The one thing that really worries me, and I think both Democrats and Republicans should be concerned, is that we have real demographic problems in our country,” Vance added. “American families don’t have enough children. I think there is evidence that some of the things we do to parents reduce the number of children born into American families. In particular, there is evidence that the car seat laws we have imposed – which of course I want children to be in seats – have resulted in a decline of over 100,000 in the number of babies born in this country.”

In other words, for last year’s GOP senator, there would have been over 100,000 more Americans if it weren’t for Americans’ concerns about “car seat laws.”

When USA Today asked Vance’s team to substantiate this claim last week, the newspaper did not receive a response. The Times also had no comment.

In fairness, the Los Angeles Times report did refer to research suggesting that car seats may have had some effect on the American birth rate, but the article also quoted John S. Santelli, professor of population and family health at the Mailman School of Public Mailman School of Public at Columbia University. Health who seemed skeptical.

“As a pediatrician who studies fertility in the U.S. and around the world, I see no scientific evidence that regulating car seats or their use reduces birth rates,” he said. “They really help kids survive car accidents.”

I don’t think we’ve heard the last one.