VP candidates Walz and Vance have something in common: A love for Diet Mountain Dew

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio have one thing in common besides being candidates for vice president – Diet Mountain Dew.

Walz doesn’t drink coffee, but he’s frequently spotted with a fluorescent green plastic bottle of his caffeinated beverage of choice.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan once tweeted a photo of him grabbing a cold one, saying, “He’s Dew’n it again! #dadjoke.” He replied, “Had to Dew it.”

Becoming Kamala Harris’ running mate doesn’t appear likely to change Walz’s habits. Minneapolis resident Scott Svare said he saw someone who appeared to be with Walz’s security detail loading two bottles of Diet Mountain Dew into an SUV on Tuesday.

READ MORE: 4 takeaways on what VP picks Vance and Walz mean for the race to come

Vance’s love for the yellow soda spurred a jab from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear when he was still in the mix to become Harris’ running mate.

“Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?” Beshear asked rhetorically in a CNN interview, suggesting that Vance was inauthentically Appalachian.

Earlier that week, Vance had said at a rally in Ohio that he’d had a Diet Mountain Dew that day and added jokingly that he expected to be called a “racist” because of it. Beshear later apologized to the manufacturer – but not to Vance.

Still, Beshear said he thought Kentuckians were more likely to turn to Ale-8-One as their soft drink of choice.