MILWAUKEE — When Sen. J.D. Vance accepts the Republican nomination for vice president here Wednesday night, the Ohioan will draw on his turbulent upbringing in a family that struggled with drug addiction and other socioeconomic crises in a city Midwest steel mill.
It’s a story of working-class struggle familiar to those who have read “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance’s best-selling 2016 memoir, or who have seen the 2020 Netflix film adapted from it.
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And while Vance’s story is new to many in a broader primetime audience, former President Donald Trump’s campaign hopes it rings true and reinforces his strength with blue-collar voters in swing states. Vance will connect his experiences to issues such as trade, inflation, immigration and the fentanyl crisis and Trump’s policies to address them, multiple sources familiar with his speech told NBC News.
Vance is also expected to emphasize his military background. The former Marine is the first post-9/11 veteran to run for a major party, and the first veteran to run for a major party since the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ran for president in 2008.
The themes of the speech live up to high expectations for Vance, 39, who would also be the third youngest vice president in U.S. history.
Republicans at the party’s national convention see him as a running mate who can rally the base in Pennsylvania and the industrial Midwest. Meanwhile, recent appearances on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and other mainstream news programs have increased confidence that Vance can competently answer tough questions outside the safe, friendly sphere of right-wing media.
“People feel like Washington has forgotten them,” former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said in an interview. “This is JD Vance, his family. They are people from all over the country who, like their family, suffered from drug addiction, suffered from poverty. He wrote about it, obviously, in his book, and then you saw it on Netflix. And I think it will be convincing – to say this is someone who identifies with the kind of people that Donald Trump stands for.”
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra also noted how Vance’s personal story can help amplify Trump’s message and agenda.
“A lot of people can identify with a vice president who can talk about his life as a young man and where it was difficult, where life was difficult,” said Hoekstra, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands. “That’s a place where a lot of Michiganders find themselves today.”
In interviews this week, many GOP officials and delegates uttered the same three words when asked about Vance’s strengths: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those states were key to Trump’s winning coalition in 2020, but four years later he lost all three by narrow margins to President Joe Biden.
“It’s going to connect really well with these states that are so important in the upcoming elections — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan,” said Riley Moore, a congressional candidate and Republican state treasurer in West Virginia. “He represents those types of values and a lot of the struggles he went through.”
Charlie Kirk, a young right-wing leader within Trump’s MAGA movement who defended Vance’s selection, believes his youth and geographic base will complement Trump.
“We have the lowest number of undecided voters of any major presidential election in the modern era,” Kirk said. “This is a basic participation election and it is a regional election. We are closer to 20 or 30 mayoral elections than we are to a presidential election. It’s in western Pennsylvania, southwestern Michigan, right where we are, right here in southeastern Wisconsin. JD Vance is the candidate for Rust Belt momentum.”
Scott Guthrie, a Republican strategist who had a front-row seat to Vance’s rise in Ohio, recalled the brutal 2022 Senate primary, which Vance won following Trump’s endorsement. Guthrie was running the campaign of Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who started as the front-runner.
“As we prepared for potential challengers, the candidate we were most concerned about was J.D. Vance,” Guthrie said. “We knew he would enter the Senate race with a compelling personal story, strong financial backing and plenty of potential to connect with voters in rural parts of the state, Appalachia and the Rust Belt.”
“As a vice presidential candidate, JD brings that strength to the national stage and will be a vital part of President Trump’s campaign to win over swing voters in key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” Guthrie added. “He has the ability to make television appearances and speak effectively and directly to these undecided voters, but he can also go out and connect in person with crowds at rallies and other campaign stops.”
Vance’s media presence was something his political team worked to improve as Trump’s search for a running mate intensified. Instead of anchoring him exclusively on right-wing programming on Fox News and Newsmax, his strategists placed him on what they considered more adversarial programs — forums in which he could debate moderators and aggressively but politely defend Trump.
“I see him doing much better in what’s called hostile media territory,” Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son and a leading supporter of Vance’s pick, said Tuesday at an event hosted by Axios .
Vance’s squad specially brought together its home state delegation this week. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW,” marveled that the Buckeye State had not had a candidate on a major party’s national ticket since Republican John Bricker ran for vice president with Thomas Dewey in 1944.
“He can relate to a mother who doesn’t have enough food, he can relate to a family who has someone who has a mental health issue or an addiction issue,” DeWine said of Vance. “That’s useful politically, but also, I think, it will be useful when he’s vice president. Going through trauma, seeing your family go through trauma, it just makes you a different person.”
Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, in an interview on the convention floor Tuesday night, noted how Vance’s hometown is a carbon copy of other excavated industrial cities.
“He grew up in Middletown, Ohio,” Husted said. “That’s where you see powerful companies like AK Steel that ran that city and were a source of reward for so many families. Seeing him wither away to the point where he’s now a shell of his former self – he gets it all. Central America will decide this election: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. And no one can go toe-to-toe with him in these states on these issues.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost offered a similar anatomical observation when assessing Vance’s gift for taking the fight to the mainstream media.
“He can take on any of them,” Yost said. “There isn’t an anchor or interviewer on the coast that I wouldn’t put JD in a room with, confident that he can take care of himself.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
