Former President and current candidate Donald Trump announced on Monday that Senator Ohio J. D. Vance will be his 'number 2' and the chosen to be Vice President of the United States if they win the November elections. Vance was the favorite among the names that have been circulating in recent weeks, which included Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. He will also be a key figure at the Republican National Convention that kicked off on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"After deep deliberation, and considering all the many talents of other candidates, I have decided that the most suitable person to assume the vice presidency of the USA is Senator J. D. Vance from the great state of Ohio," Trump said in a statement on social media. After praising his career in college, the military, and business, the former president said that Vance "will focus on the campaign on the people he has so brilliantly defended, such as workers and farmers from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and beyond," mentioning a significant number of battleground states, crucial in determining the winner.
The senator, 39, is by far the youngest and has the most unique story. An emerging figure but not yet established, who not long ago said that only an "idiot" would vote for Trump. A profile diametrically opposed to Mike Pence, the religious conservative Trump chose in 2016 to appeal to the more rigorous bases of the Republican Party, complementing the candidacy of an eccentric, divorced, womanizing millionaire plagued with scandals who ran against Hillary Clinton, breaking all molds. Someone with a lot of energy, drive, but not the most conciliatory to achieve the unity and reconciliation that Trump has advocated after the assassination attempt on Saturday.
Vance has been in politics for less than a decade, gaining fame by publishing a memoir, but he is consolidating as the conservative option for the next decade. He was born and raised in the Rust Belt, the once manufacturing belt of the country, in a poor, depressed environment, with broken families and daily aggression. Where alcohol and drugs are part of survival, the minimum wage is the norm, and opportunities are very scarce. In an area, next to the Appalachians, where making ends meet relies on public assistance, but that does not prevent a strong personal pride and a brutal rejection of the government, interventionism, and taxes.
Vance, quick, intelligent, with enormous determination, managed to finish high school, joined the Army, earned a college degree at Yale, made money in the private sector, and published, at the suggestion of Amy Chua, the Law professor who a decade earlier became a public figure with a book about Tiger Mothers and how to educate children in an Asian style to be competitive in the modern world, 'Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis'.
The work, a narrative about the decline of a part of the working class, rural and white, in agonizing decline in recent decades, opened eyes with a light prose to a underestimated phenomenon. That first-person testimony of a world in crisis, angry, violent, and resentful, in perpetual search of culprits for its poverty and misery, was one of the bibles to try to explain Trump's victory that year. And a story of success and overcoming as liked in the country, of someone who with work, sacrifice, and personal talent manages to rise and enrich themselves. How anyone can be president, the American dream.
A poor, violent, and proud childhood
Vance went from that very conservative, fervently religious, proud and irate environment, despised by the rest of the country, treated with disdain and arrogance, abandoned, to the other extreme, the Ivy League university and the billionaire entrepreneurs. He was raised by his grandmother, a 'blue dog' Democrat, as the moderates of the party are known, with 19 guns at home.
Upon returning from Iraq, he demonstrated his intelligence in a highly competitive academic environment and made money as a corporate lawyer, in the technology sector, and in the world of venture capitalism. He surrounded himself with millionaires from the libertarian and conservative orbit, like Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal and Palantir and one of the first investors in Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, SpaceX, Lyft, or Spotify), who would be his boss, friend, partner, and main financier of his campaign when he made the leap in 2022 and secured the Senate seat.
Thiel and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox star turned king of the MAGA World media ecosystem, were his pillars. The first provided millions of dollars and introduced him to Donald Trump, whose last-minute support was decisive. The latter brought him to his show on the reference television of the conservative world more than a dozen times, turning him into a minor celebrity.
Vance's ideology has shifted further to the right over time. If in 2016 he was the bridge between the more progressive world of the media and a part of the country that did not understand it, shortly after he became a fierce critic. The man nominated today, between 2016 and 2018, scorned Trump saying he would never vote for him, that his policies were "immoral and absurd," that his candidacy was a "cultural heroin" for people like those he had known all his life in the depressed South. He even compared him to Hitler, before gradually becoming one of his biggest fans, defenders, and admirers.
In the last three years, with a more solid platform, Vance has become even more conservative. A voice against immigration, skeptical of climate change, claiming that the 2020 elections were stolen, subscribing to many conspiracy theories. He has publicly apologized for what he said in the past, for his "error in judgment," and the Trump family has forgiven him.
He is also very critical of US military aid to Ukraine and a shift to the East in the country's Foreign Policy, but not only due to the usual Trumpist rhetoric, or because of the discourse of those more sympathetic to Russia, growing within what was once the party of Reagan and Bush. But appealing to the memory of 20 years ago, the Iraq War, and what he considers the propaganda and deceptions that led many like him to enlist and go to combat zones. "No one is concerned about the continuation of military conflicts abroad. No one seems to care about the unforeseen consequences," is the basis of his Foreign Policy on military matters. Except regarding Israel and helping threatened Christians.
What does Vance bring to Trump? The entire country knows the candidate and he has absolute control of the Party. In the world of 2024, he is not looking for someone to 'complement' him as in 2016, to reach specific groups or minorities. Vance is the youngest and Trump always said he wanted someone "presidential" as his 'number 2'.
He is the only one who has served in the military in both candidacies. And probably, among the contenders in the speculations, he is the one who can put Kamala Harris in the most trouble if they are the protagonists of the traditional televised vice presidential debate. But at the same time, his youth and lack of experience are his great vulnerability because Trump and the Republicans have criticized Harris these years accusing her precisely of that, of not having a background.
Donors for the party of the future
With the zeal of the convert, during this campaign Vance has been one of the most active senators, attending events, constantly appearing in the media, and helping to court reluctant donors in Ohio but also California. For example, at a fundraising event in June in Silicon Valley organized by entrepreneur David Sacks, he acted as a point of contact, and the campaign raised 12 million dollars. And he offers something special: a past that appeals to the struggling working class, the same language as the elites, with whom he mingled both at Yale and in Silicon Valley. And a remarkable ability to communicate on television.
The strategists have been saying in recent days that the governor would have been the prudent choice if governance is the concern. Rubio, the option if there is fear of losing and the need to activate the Hispanic community. But J.D. Vance is the candidate if shaping the party's future is on your mind. And the favorite of Trump's campaign manager, Susie Wiles, a highly experienced operative in the Republican world, and of two of Trump's children, who have openly expressed this in their podcasts recently.
Vance is not the favorite of the business world or Robert Murdoch and the Fox world, which seemed to lean towards Burgum, someone more predictable and in line with the party's traditional stance. But he can appease the more religious bases and the anti-abortion movement, upset because Trump's campaign has chosen to remain on the sidelines in recent months, as the issue, especially after the Supreme Court reversed the Roe Vs Wade case in 2022, is one of the main voter mobilizers in the Democratic world. But without a position as tough as Rubio or Burgum.