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Political questions have kept many of us up at night this election season. What would happen if Donald Trump loses? And: What if he wins? What about the dreaded and mathematically possible and maybe increasingly likely prospect of an Electoral College tie? A fourth question, slightly less heavy than the weight of those electoral outcomes, involves Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance. It’s hard to know how tall he is.
For a while there, a large-type Google result — what they call a “featured snippet” — had Vance’s height listed at five-foot-seven. This caused some social-media users to make fun of the Ohio senator for being two inches shorter than the national average. Others used it as fuel for the theory that Donald Trump is not as tall as the six-three he claims. What everyone could agree upon is that the running mates appear to be roughly the same height in photos.
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Without getting too far into the matter of Trump’s actual versus stated height and weight, Vance is clearly in the ballpark of Trump, who we all also agree is north of six feet tall.
In a statement, Google said that results like this (heights of famous people) are automatically generated from its Knowledge Graph. This compendium pulls from the web — including sites like IMDb, which once listed Vance as five-seven.
To find the real answer, I reached out to members of Vance’s inner circle to find out how tall their friend is. Most of them did not respond to this admittedly kind of weird (yes) email. Economist and former Mitt Romney adviser Oren Cass got back to me: “Well I’m 5’7” and he’s definitely a lot taller than me, for whatever it’s worth!” So did Patrick Deneen, the “postliberal” political scientist at Notre Dame. “I’m 5’6 and he’s at least six inches taller than me,” he wrote. “So 5’7 seems way off to me. Who could possibly imagine that Google might be incorrect?!?”
Fair point. And: We’re getting there. After a few emails to the Trump-Vance campaign, I heard back from his communications director, Will Martin. “You still trying to pin down JD’s height?” he texted me.
“Yes we are,” I texted. “Hoping to dispel this 5-7 rumor.”
“He is 6’2”,” Martin wrote.
There we are. J.D. Vance is officially six-two.
This may be a dumb way to spend a few hours at work. Height, however, is important for politicians dreaming of the executive branch. Of the 45 presidents, 20 have been six feet or taller. Just six were five-seven or shorter. So even if polling suggests there are some doubts about his likability, he’s got the height for the job.
