Republican nominee Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Monday that Ohio Senator J.D. Vance is his pick for vice president.
Vance, 39, who joined the Senate Last year, he was already an outspoken critic of the former president after his blockbuster memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, catapulted him to fame just months before the 2016 election.
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Vance, born James Donald Bowman, will be the youngest vice president ever if elected.
The vice presidential candidate speaks candidly about his troubled childhood, which helped him pave a potential path to the White House with Donald Trump.
His mother struggled with severe addiction issues, and at just 6 years old, his biological father gave him up for adoption by his stepfather.
That left him being raised primarily by his grandparents, Jim and Bonnie Vance, known to the vice presidential candidate as “Papaw” and “Mamaw” — who Vance described as “blue dog Democrats.”
After graduating high school in 2003, Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a corporal in the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.
“I served my country with honor and I saw, when I went to Iraq, that I was lied to – that the promises of the foreign policy establishment were a complete joke,” Vance has said in the past.
He later graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in political science and philosophy, and in 2010 he enrolled at Yale Law School, where he met his wife and mother of his three children, Usha Chilukuri.
In his book, released in 2016, Vance told his personal story and gave readers across the country a look into the struggles of those living in America’s Rust Belt.
ELEGIA HILBILLY
Hillbilly Elegy offered a rare and moving glimpse into the lives of those who formed the backbone of Donald Trump’s support in the 2016 presidential election.
The memoir provided invaluable context, illustrating the challenges and frustrations of low-income Caucasian communities who have felt left behind by the rapid economic changes and globalization that have benefited urban centers and coastal regions.
In his book, Vance argued that the decline of post-industrial America was due primarily to the social pathologies of the white working class rather than an actual decline in the industrial economy in the US.
When Trump, a New York real estate mogul, won the presidency in 2016, many political leaders and media figures turned to Vance’s book to better understand the phenomenon of his supporters.
The memoir illuminates why these struggling Rust Belt Americans resonated with Trump’s message of change and disruption.
Vance’s firsthand account of his upbringing in a working-class family in Ohio and Kentucky helped explain how Trump’s promises to revive industry, combat the opioid crisis and restore American jobs struck a chord with these voters who felt neglected by the political establishment.
The memoir’s main narrative about overcoming adversity through personal responsibility and resilience offered a framework for interpreting the broader political and social changes taking place in this part of the country at the time.
“There is a lack of agency here [in Middletown] – a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself,” Vance wrote in his memoir.
However, despite his book being used to understand why these Americans voted the way they did, Vance himself revealed himself to be a “never Trumpist” and said he did not vote for him in 2016.
“I have no stomach for Trump. I think he’s harmful and he’s taking the white working class to a very dark place,” Vance told NPR that year.
Vance also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled: Mr. Trump Is Unfit for Our Nation’s Highest Office.
Vance even called Trump voters “idiots” and “America’s Hitter” in a Facebook message to an associate in 2016.
But after Trump’s first term, Vance says he was proven wrong about Trump and has since become one of his most loyal supporters in the Senate, saying he would be “disappointed” if he were not chosen as his vice president.
“When you’re wrong about something — you should be able to change your mind,” Vance said of his stance on Trump.
Vance said he voted for Trump in 2020 before starting his own Senate campaign in 2022, earning Trump’s endorsement during his candidacy.
ABOUT THE QUESTIONS
Since joining the Senate last year, Vance’s work has included some bipartisan proposals.
After the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Vance introduced a railroad safety reform bill with Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.
He also worked with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on legislation to hold executives responsible for failed banks, but neither bill was brought to the floor for a vote.
But other bills introduced by Vance have come under harsh criticism.
Such as legislation introduced by Vance to ban gender-affirming care for minors, a ban on federal mask mandates and a bill to eliminate diversity programs in the federal government.
Although Vance describes himself as “pro-life,” previously supporting a 15-week federal abortion ban, in a CNN Interview in December, he said Republicans must “accept that people don’t want blanket abortion bans.”
Vance openly opposes the PRO Act, described as the “Holy Grail of pro-union labor reform,” by PoliticalThis reform would make it easier for workers to organize, constituting a significant revision of US labor law since the 1940s.
Vance also made it clear that if he had been in Mike Pence’s situation during the 2020 election, he would not have certified the results.
“If I were vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of voters and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought for that from there,” Vance said. said in February.
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