JD Vance

JD Vance
Official portrait, 2023
United States Senator from Ohio
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2023 Serving with Sherrod Brown
Preceded by	Rob Portman
Personal details
Born	James Donald Bowman (1984-08-02) August 2, 1984 Middletown, Ohio, US
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Usha Chilukuri ​ (m. 2014)​
Children	3
Education	Ohio State University (BA) Yale University (JD)
Occupation	Politician author venture capitalist lawyer
Signature
Website	Senate website
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	2003–2007
Rank	Corporal
Unit	2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Battles/wars	Iraq War
Awards	Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal Global War on Terrorism Service Medal Iraq Campaign Medal Navy and Marine Corps Sea Service Deployment Ribbon

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician, lawyer, author and a Marine veteran who has been serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he is the party's nominee for vice president in the 2024 United States presidential election.

After graduating from Middletown High School, Vance joined the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served from 2003 to 2007 as a combat correspondent, with six months in Iraq. He then attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013. His 2016 bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy got considerable press attention during the 2016 election and it was adapted into a feature film by Ron Howard in 2020.

In 2021, Vance entered electoral politics as a Republican candidate in the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, which he won defeating the Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. Initially opposed to Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance has since become a strong Trump supporter. In July 2024, Trump nominated Vance as his running mate at the Republican National Convention. He is the first Marine veteran to be nominated for vice president.

Vance has been called a neoreactionary, national conservative, and a right-wing populist. He has cited Curtis Yarvin, Rod Dreher, and Patrick Deneen as influences on his ideological views and describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. On social issues, he has promoted strongly conservative policies, opposing abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control and has proposed banning transgender healthcare for minors. Vance differs from mainstream Republican views on market interventions, taxes, the minimum wage, unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy, while opposing American military aid to Ukraine.

Early life and education

James Donald Bowman was born on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, to Beverly Carol (née Vance; born 1961) and Donald Ray Bowman (1959–2023). He is of Scots-Irish descent. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. Shortly afterward, Bowman was adopted by his mother's third husband, Bob Hamel, and had his name changed to James David Hamel.

Vance has written that his childhood was marked by poverty and abuse, and his mother struggled with drug addiction. Vance and his sister Lindsey were raised primarily by his maternal grandparents, James (1929–1997) and Bonnie Vance (née Blanton; 1933–2005), whom they called "Mamaw and Papaw". His grandparents on both sides moved to Ohio from Kentucky's Appalachia.

Vance in the U.S. Marine Corps, 2003

After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003, Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was deployed to Iraq as a combat correspondent for six months in late 2005. There, he was assigned to the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. About his service, he commented that it "taught me how to live like an adult" and he was "lucky to escape any real fighting".

He then attended Ohio State University with the support of the G.I. Bill's tuition benefits and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and philosophy in 2009. At this time, he worked for Republican state senator Bob Schuler.

After graduating from Ohio State, Vance attended Yale Law School on a nearly full-ride scholarship. He became close friends during Yale's orientation with future Canadian Conservative member of parliament Jamil Jivani. During his first year, professor Amy Chua, author of the 2011 book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, persuaded him to write his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. He was an editor of The Yale Law Journal, and graduated in 2013 with a Juris Doctor degree.

Upon his marriage in 2014, Vance adopted his grandparents' surname of Vance. In 2017, Vance received an honorary degree from Centre College.

Early career

After law school, Vance worked for Republican Senator John Cornyn. He spent a year as a law clerk for Judge David Bunning of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, then entered private practice at the law firm Sidley Austin. Having practiced law for slightly under two years, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a principal at Peter Thiel's firm, Mithril Capital.

Writing

Vance in 2017

In 2016, Harper published Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2016 and 2017. The New York Times called it "one of the six best books to help understand Trump's win".

The Washington Post called Vance the "voice of the Rust Belt", while The New Republic criticized him as "liberal media's favorite white trash–splainer" and the "false prophet of blue America." Economist William Easterly, a West Virginia native, criticized the book, writing, "Sloppy analysis of collections of people—coastal elites, flyover America, Muslims, immigrants, people without college degrees, you name it—has become routine. And it's killing our politics."

After his book's success, Vance became a CNN contributor in early 2017. In April 2017, Ron Howard signed on to direct the film version of Hillbilly Elegy, which was released in select theaters on November 11, 2020. It was stream released on November 24 on Netflix.

Advocacy

In December 2016, Vance said he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office. In Ohio, he started Our Ohio Renewal, a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization focused on education, addiction, and other "social ills" that he had mentioned in his memoir. The group was closed after less than two years with sparse achievements. According to Jamil Jivani, the organization's director of law and policy, the group's work was derailed because of his own cancer diagnosis.

During Vance's 2022 campaign for US Senate, Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, said the charity was a front for Vance's political ambitions. Ryan pointed to reports that the organization paid a Vance political adviser and conducted public opinion polling, while its efforts to address addiction failed. Vance denied the characterization. A 2021 report by Business Insider revealed that Our Ohio Renewal's tax filings showed that in its first year, it spent more on "management services" provided by its executive director Jai Chabria, who also served as Vance's top political adviser, than it did on programs to fight opioid abuse.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the charity's biggest accomplishment, sending psychiatrist Sally Satel to Ohio's Appalachian region for a yearlong residency in 2018, was tainted by the ties among Satel, her employer, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Purdue Pharma, in the form of knowledge exchange between Satel and Purdue and financial support from Purdue to AEI, as found by a ProPublica 2019 investigation. In an email to AP, Satel denied having any relationship with Purdue or any knowledge of Purdue's donations to AEI.

Investing

In 2017, Vance joined the investment firm Revolution LLC. It was founded by Steve Case, who also cofounded AOL. Vance was tasked with expanding the "Rise of the Rest" initiative, which focuses on growing investments in underserved regions outside Silicon Valley and New York City. In 2019, Vance co-founded Narya Capital in Cincinnati with financial backing from Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt, and Marc Andreessen. In 2020, he raised $93 million for the firm. With Thiel and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, Vance has invested in Rumble, a Canadian online video platform popular with the political right.

US Senate

2022 campaign

Main article: 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio

Final results by Ohio county in 2022:

  JD Vance

•   80–90%
•   70–80%
•   60–70%
•   50–60%

  Tim Ryan

•   60–70%
•   50–60%

In early 2018, Vance considered running for the US Senate against Sherrod Brown, but did not. In March 2021, Peter Thiel gave $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC created in February to support a potential Vance candidacy. Robert Mercer also gave an undisclosed amount. In April, Vance expressed interest in running for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman. In May, he launched an exploratory committee. Vance is an ally of Republican fundraiser Nate Morris, who has also financially supported Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Vance officially entered the race on July 1, 2021. It was his first campaign for public office. On May 3, 2022, he won the Republican primary with 32% of the vote, defeating multiple candidates, including Josh Mandel (23%) and Matt Dolan (22%). On November 8, in the general election, Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote to Ryan's 47%.

Tenure

On January 3, 2023, Vance was sworn in to the US Senate, as a member of the 118th United States Congress. He is the first US senator from Ohio without previous political experience since John Glenn, who took office in 1974.

Vance's Senate work has included:

• Co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to lower the price of insulin.
• Collaborated with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to claw back executive pay when big banks fail.
• Along with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA14), introduced a companion bill which would criminalize gender-affirming care for minors with penalties of up to 12 years in prison.

He has also voted against raising the debt ceiling, standing against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

Vance was criticized for his delayed response to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. His office released an official statement on February 13, 2023, ten days after the derailment, though Vance had sent a message about the derailment, the day after it occurred, on social media.

On February 26, 2023, Vance wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, supporting the provision of PPP style funds to those affected by the derailment, which some Republican senators criticized. On March 1, 2023, Vance, Brown, and Senators John Fetterman, Bob Casey, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio proposed bipartisan legislation to prevent derailments like the one in East Palestine.

Committee assignments

• Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
  • Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection subcommittee
  • Housing, Transportation, and Community Development subcommittee
  • Securities, Insurance, and Investment subcommittee
• Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
  • Communications, Media, and Broadband subcommittee
  • Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing subcommittee
  • Space and Science subcommittee
• Senate Special Committee on Aging

2024 vice presidential campaign

Main articles: Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign and 2024 Republican Party vice presidential candidate selection

Vance and Trump standing together during the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention

On January 31, 2023, Vance endorsed former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries. On July 15, 2024, the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention, Trump announced that he had chosen Vance as his running mate in a post on Truth Social. On July 17, the third day of the convention, Vance accepted the nomination and is the running-mate of Trump for the November 5 presidential election. He is the first Marine veteran on a presidential ticket.

Media commentators noted that Vance could strengthen the Republican ticket in the Midwest. David A. Graham of The Atlantic wrote that Vance "brings youth and intellect to the Republican ticket".

Catherine Lucey and John McCormick of the Wall Street Journal wrote that Vance "offers Trump a natural successor to his MAGA movement" due to his populist stances. As such, he is seen as a candidate who could increase voter turnout among the former president's loyal voting base.

Vance with Republican fundraiser Nate Morris, July 2024

AP reported that Vance could help deliver new funding streams to Trump's campaign, particularly those connected to the tech industry. On May 15, 2024, Trump attended a $50,000 per head private fundraising dinner with Vance in Cincinnati. Guests included Chris Bortz and Republican fundraiser Nate Morris. Vance appeared at significant conservative political events and was described as a potential running mate for Trump in June 2024.

Several media and industry figures are said to have lobbied for Vance to be on the presidential ticket, including Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, and Tucker Carlson. The Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025, privately advocated for Vance to be Trump's vice-presidential pick.

Musk responded to Trump's vice presidential pick hours after the official announcement saying the ticket resounds with victory. David Sacks, a prominent GOP donor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, wrote on X, "This is who I want by Trump's side: an American patriot." In 2022, Sacks gave Vance's Senate campaign $900,000, and investor Peter Thiel added $15 million. Musk will be contributing $45 million monthly said the Wall Street Journal.

Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, advocated for their father to choose Vance as the nominee. Trump Jr. has been friends with Vance since publication of Hillbilly Elegy.

Political positions

During his time in the Senate, Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, national conservative, right-wing populist, and as an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan.

Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right. He has cited the authors Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, Curtis Yarvin, and J.R.R. Tolkien as influences on his beliefs. Peter Thiel, William Julius Wilson, Robert Putnam, David Autor, René Girard, Raj Chetty, Oren Cass, and Yoram Hazony are also said to have shaped his thinking. Dreher was a guest at Vance's baptism for his conversion to Roman Catholicism. His economic views have been described as "economic populism" and sometimes "economic nationalism." This view has elements of protectionism, particularly with regards to re-shoring of American industry, especially manufacturing, and protecting American jobs more generally.

His economic views are considered unorthodox within the Republican Party. He supports unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy. His open support for striking auto workers, in particular, surprised many in the party. While Vance has indicated opposition to tax increases overall, he supports increases for certain taxes on university endowments, corporate mergers and large multinationals. He supports an increase to the minimum wage, and he is highly skeptical of the economic and social contributions of large corporations. On social issues, Vance is considered to be strongly socially conservative. He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and gun control. Vance has proposed federal criminalization of transgender healthcare for minors and has admitted he wants to ban pornography. He is opposed to continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion. Vance has described himself as being "plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures" online and is known for his ties to Silicon Valley. News sources have noted him as following "a host of edgy right-wing accounts" such as Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, and Lomez.

Neoreactionary movement

Vance has said that he is a "reactionary" who is at war with the "regime". He is influenced by and is considered to be "part of a rising New Right circle of politicians and thinkers who have embraced a neoreactionary (or 'NRx') form of politics". The movement, also known as The Dark Enlightenment, opposes mass participatory democracy, particularly liberal democracy. Vance is a personal friend of Curtis Yarvin. A proponent of "reactionary enlightenment", Yarvin has circulated the idea that there is currently a hard connection between academia, politics, and the media, where one reinforces the beliefs of the other, which he describes as 'The Cathedral'; and that the only way to undo the problem is to introduce a kind of monarchy.

Vance has said about his views: "I think Curtis Yarvin's monarchy ideas are bonkers, but you know what? He's absolutely on to something real with his concept of the Cathedral". Vance has argued that American liberals falsely claim to preserve an apolitical civil service that in reality is used to punish right-wing figures, saying: "The thing that I kept thinking about liberalism in 2019 and 2020 is that these guys have all read Carl Schmitt—there's no law, there's just power." He has compared present American history to the end of the Roman Republic. In 2022, he said: "We are in a late republican period... If we're going to push back... we're going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with."

In a podcast interview, Vance said that Trump should "fire every single mid-level bureaucrat" in the US government and "replace them with our people." If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should ignore the rulings of the courts, citing Andrew Jackson's reaction to the Supreme Court ruling Worcester v. Georgia as inspiration, citing a likely apocryphal quote from him saying: "You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it..."

Abortion

Vance supported the United States Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade and opposes abortion. In 2024, he has said that abortion laws should be set by the states.

In September 2021, when asked whether abortion laws should include exceptions for rape and incest, Vance said, "two wrong[s] don't make a right." He said he preferred to frame the question as a matter of "whether a child should be allowed to live" rather than as what a woman is "forced" to do. A month later, he said: "There's something comparable between abortion and slavery and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society." In January 2022, he said: "I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." Yet in an October 2022 debate, he said: "I've always believed in reasonable exceptions." Later, he specified that he supported exceptions for rape, incest, and preserving a mother's life.

In a 2022 interview, Vance said: "I'd like it to be primarily a state issue. Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that's reasonable. I want Ohio to be able to make its own decisions, and I want Ohio's elected legislators to make those decisions. But I think it's fine to sort of set some minimum national standard."

In June 2024, the Supreme Court at least temporarily preserved access to mifepristone, after which Trump said during a debate that he "agree[d] with their decision" and would not "block" the drug. In July, a week before Vance was announced as Trump's running mate, Vance told NBC's Meet the Press that he likewise supported access to mifepristone.

Family, divorces, and women's roles

Vance has been called a natalist or pro-natalist due to his support for the traditional nuclear family, the institution of marriage, and the importance of an active role for the state in encouraging and enabling family-formation and raising the national fertility rate.

In a 2021 speech to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance blamed "the childless left" for America's woes, accusing it of lacking a "physical commitment to the future of this country." He praised conservative Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán for encouraging married couples to have children and said that parents should "have a bigger say in how democracy functions" than non-parents. Vance suggested achieving this by allotting "votes to all children in this country, but let's give control over those votes to the parents of the children", with the result being that "nonparents don't have as much of a voice as parents".

In September 2021, while speaking at Pacifica Christian High School in California, Vance said:

This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that, like, "well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally—you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term." ... And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical. But it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages.

Vice wrote that Vance "seemed to suggest that in some cases, 'even violent' marriages should continue." In response to Vice, Vance claimed that rates of domestic violence had "skyrocketed" in recent years due to what he called "modern society's war on families", although in recent decades, rates of domestic violence have decreased. A strategist for Vance called Vice's characterization "extremely dishonest" and said it was "preposterous" to claim that Vance supports people staying in abusive relationships given that he was himself "the victim of domestic abuse when he was a kid".

Vance holds views critical of non-traditional working roles for women. In a 2022 post on X, he wrote: "If your worldview tells you that it's bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you've been had."

Sexuality and gender

Vance opposes the Respect for Marriage Act, which recognized same-sex marriage at the federal level. He said: "I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I don't think the gay marriage issue is alive right now. I'm not one of these guys who's looking to try to take people's families and rip them apart."

Vance proposed a bill that would make gender-affirming care for minors a federal felony and block taxpayer funds from being used for it, saying, "Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children."

Immigration and border security

Vance has argued that failing to secure the United States' southern border has fueled the US opioid epidemic by enabling illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the country, "orphaning an entire generation of kids". He is a critic of mass immigration, claiming that it drives down working-class Americans' wages, increases house prices, and increases strain on social security. He opposes granting legal amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States and argued that corporations use illegal immigration as a source of cheap labor to undercut the domestic American labor market.

Vance once admonished Trump for demonizing immigrants but has repeatedly called the effects of illegal immigration "dirty". He has supported Trump's proposal for a wall along the southern border and rejected the idea that advocates for the wall are racist. Vance has proposed spending $3 billion to finish Trump's wall.

During Vance's Senate run in 2022, his opponent, Democratic Representative Tim Ryan, accused Vance of supporting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, citing the fact that Vance had told Tucker Carlson that Democrats "have decided that they can't win reelection in 2022 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here." Vance, who later won the election, said that Ryan's statement was "slander" and said he was not racist, citing his biracial children. During the same campaign, Vance falsely suggested that President Joe Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs "to kill a bunch of MAGA voters," saying that "It does look intentional."

In 2023, Vance introduced a bill that would make English the United States' official language.

Foreign policy

Vance speaking at the 2024 People's Convention.

While Vance has been called an isolationist, he supports Israel and is considered a realist who believes America's real national security threat is China, a view broadly aligned with Republican national security professional Elbridge Colby. At the 2024 Munich Security Conference, Vance said the US did not want to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but argued the US should shift its focus to East Asia, and that certain European and NATO member countries were not spending enough for their own security.

Israel

Vance is a strong supporter of Israel and has said "culturally, morally, politically, it is a real ally in the sense that we're not just sort of sharing interests, we're actually sharing common values."

Vance has been called a "steadfast supporter of Israel throughout the country's war in Gaza". He supports US funding to Israel in the Israel–Hamas war. Vance has criticized the Biden administration for "depriving the Israelis of the precision-guided weapons" the country needs, and said that Hamas bears full responsibility for all civilian deaths. He criticized Biden in April 2024 for "micromanaging" Israeli actions in the war, saying, "you've got to, first of all, enable Israel to actually finish the job".

Vance repeated his criticism of the Biden administration in July 2024, saying: "Number one, you want Israel to get this war over and as quickly as possible because the longer it goes on, the harder their situation becomes. But second, after the war you want to reinvigorate that peace process between Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Jordanians, and so forth". More broadly, he has said, "We want the Israelis and the Sunnis to police their own region of the world."

Iran

When asked in October 2023 whether he would support military action against Iran after militias allegedly connected to Iran attacked US troops, Vance said it would be a "mistake", citing concern about significant escalation. After his nomination as Trump's running mate, Vance praised the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, adding: "If you're gonna punch the Iranians, punch them hard."

Iraq and Afghanistan

In a 2024 speech, Vance said that "in 2003, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War" but that he later realized "that I had been lied to that the promises of the foreign policy establishment were a complete joke."

In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, amid a rift among Republicans over whether to admit Afghans who aided the US during the war, Vance claimed that "We're actually prioritizing Afghan refugees more than we're prioritizing our own citizens."

China

Vance has called China "the biggest threat" to the United States, and has argued that the war in Ukraine is distracting the US from focusing on the threat from China. At the Munich Security Forum in 2024, Vance said the US Foreign Policy should pivot from Europe to East Asia, he said, "The United States has to focus more on East Asia. That is going to be the future of US foreign policy for the next 40 years, and Europe has to wake up to that fact."

Russia–Ukraine war

In an interview with Steve Bannon in 2022, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vance said, "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. I do care about the fact that in my community right now the leading cause of death among 18-45-year-olds is Mexican fentanyl that's coming across the southern border." Vance is a vocal critic of US military aid to Ukraine in the ongoing Russo–Ukrainian War and has faced bipartisan criticism for his views on Ukraine. In February 2024, he said, "Given the realities that we face, the very real constraints in munitions and [Ukraine's] manpower, what is reasonable to accomplish and when do we actually think we're going to accomplish it? And my argument is, look, I think what's reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace."

In April 2024, Vance voted against an aid package for Ukraine; in a New York Times essay, he wrote that he remained "opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war" and argued that US aid would not change the trajectory of the war. Vance argues that Ukraine should adopt a "defensive strategy" to "preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence"; that the US and Ukraine must "accept that Mr. Zelensky's stated goal for the war—a return to 1991 boundaries—is fantastical"; and that "Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians".

In December 2023, Vance was criticized for calling for the suspension of further aid to Ukraine because he said it would be used so its ministers "can buy a bigger yacht". Vance has criticized the Ukrainian government for corruption, and contends that the Biden administration has not properly audited aid to Ukraine.

In interviews and statements in 2024, Vance said that he did not want Russia to conquer Ukraine, but supported a "freeze" of "the territorial lines somewhere close to where they are right now"; guarantees of Kyiv's neutrality and exclusion of Ukraine from NATO (a key Russian demand); and providing "some American security assistance over the long term."

United Kingdom

In July 2024, after the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Vance said that the United Kingdom could become the "first truly Islamist country with nuclear weapons". This statement, which echoed right-wing characterizations of Britain and Europe, was dismissed by senior British officials, such as Angela Rayner, James Murray, and Andrew Bowie. Nevertheless, Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have described each other as friends, and Vance's foreign policy advisor, Elbridge Colby, called Lammy "far preferable" to his Conservative predecessor, Lord Cameron.

Health care

Vance supported the Biden administration's legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. In 2022, he cosponsored a bill to cap the price of insulin, and he supports permitting the importing of medical drugs from overseas. He has said that he has no intention of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Vance has suggested he would support legislative efforts to provide universal pregnancy healthcare coverage.

Vaccine and mask mandates

In August 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vance wrote an op-ed opposing his alma mater's COVID vaccination requirement.

In September 2023, Vance introduced his "Freedom to Breathe" bill to prevent federal agencies from requiring masks on commercial airlines, public transit and in public schools and to prevent those industries from refusing to serve people who don't wear a mask. He claimed that mask mandates "failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses" and "violated basic bodily freedom" and were "unscientific". In Senate remarks, he said children "need us to not be Chicken Little about every single respiratory pandemic and problem that confronts this country".

Social Security

Vance said in 2024 that he opposed cuts to Social Security or Medicare, and opposed privatizing Social Security. He has said concerns about the long-term solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund are overstated, and that increasing labor force participation and birth rate would sustain the system.

Antitrust laws

Vance has expressed concern that large tech companies have too much influence in politics and the flow of information and has called to "break up" Google, as well as implying he believes Meta should be split up. He has said that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan is "doing a pretty good job", citing her antitrust enforcement against tech firms. Vance and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act, which would end tax-free treatment for corporate mergers and acquisitions of companies above a certain threshold.

Climate change and the environment

Vance has downplayed the effects of climate change. In response to a radio host who asserted there was no climate crisis, Vance said, "No, I don't think there is, either." Vance has said, "If you think that man-made climate change is a catastrophic problem, the solution for it is for us to produce more of our own energy, including fossil fuels, here in the United States".

Vance has argued that environmental regulations have caused a large number of manufacturing jobs to be outsourced to other countries. He has proposed a bill that would repeal certain tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act for electric vehicles and institute a $7,500 tax credit for gas-powered cars manufactured in the US. Vance also proposed paying to end the marriage penalty for the Earned Income Tax Credit by repealing electric vehicle tax credits.

Relationship with Donald Trump

During the 2016 US presidential election, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 18, 2016, USA Today column, he wrote, "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." In April 2016, Vance said, "Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office". In the Atlantic and on a PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, Vance called Trump "cultural heroin" and "an opioid of the masses." In August 2016, Vance asserted that Trump is "noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place." In October 2016, he called Trump an "idiot and "reprehensible" in a post on Twitter and called himself a "never-Trump guy."

In a private message in 2016, Vance wrote, "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler." Vance said he did not vote for Trump in 2016, but instead for independent candidate Evan McMullin.

By February 2018, Vance began changing his opinion, saying Trump "is one of the few political leaders in America that recognizes the frustration that exists in large parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and so forth".

Vance supported Trump in 2020. In July 2021, he apologized for calling Trump "reprehensible" and deleted posts from 2016 from his Twitter account that were critical of him. Vance said he now thought Trump was a good president and expressed regret about his criticism during the 2016 election. Vance visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and Peter Thiel ahead of an official announcement of his US Senate campaign.

In October 2021, Vance reiterated Trump's false claims of election fraud, saying that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread voter fraud. On April 15, 2022, Trump endorsed Vance for the US Senate.

After historian Robert Kagan wrote a November 2023 Washington Post opinion piece titled "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending", Vance wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter suggesting Kagan be prosecuted for promoting "open rebellion" by Democrat-controlled states. Kagan said that his piece did not advocate rebellion and remarked, "It is revealing that their first instinct when attacked by a journalist is to suggest that they be locked up."

On June 30, 2024, on Face the Nation, Vance said, "I believe that the president has broad pardon authority ... but more importantly, I think the president has immunity".

Formerly a vocal critic of Trump, Vance was named as his running mate on July 15, 2024, at the 2024 Republican National Convention. He now shares Trump's views on trade, foreign policy, and immigration. While many Democrats and some Republicans see Vance's shift as opportunistic, Trump loyalists generally believe it is a genuine progression, noting Vance's strong focus on working-class voters.

Labor unions

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler stated, "A Trump–Vance administration would be a dream for corporate CEOs but a nightmare for workers. Sen. JD Vance likes to pose as a union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers' unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts."

Vance's brief tenure in the Senate, just under two years, has not garnered much confidence from labor advocates. He voted against Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to American manufacturers. According to the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation representing approximately 12.5 million workers, Vance has proposed legislation that would allow employers to bypass their workers' unions and has opposed measures that would make it easier for workers to form unions.

Vance also opposes the PRO Act, which expands protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain, instead voicing support for proposals by the conservative group American Compass, which includes workers' councils and sectoral bargaining. Based on his voting record in the Senate, the AFL-CIO has scored him at 0% on its Legislative Scorecard. Teamsters President Sean O'Brien has praised Vance and other Republicans for "listening to unions and standing up to corporations", for which O'Brien was criticized by other union leaders, including from within the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters union itself. Vance has criticized "right-to-work" anti-trade union laws.

Personal life

Vance was raised in a low-income family by his single mother and grandmother. As noted in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, the family had a difficult life in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents had moved from Kentucky. As a child, he idolized an "American dream, with a happy family at its core", and admired Bill Clinton due to his similar background, noting that "He was a poor boy" raised by a single mother and loving grandparents."

Around 2011, Vance met his wife, Usha Chilukuri, while both were graduate students at Yale Law School, and described her as "my Yale spirit guide". In 2014, Vance married Chilukuri in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony; she is a Hindu and he a Christian. Their wedding included a Bible reading by Vance's "best friend" Canadian Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, while the couple was also blessed by a Hindu pandit. The Vance couple went on to have three children: two boys, Ewan and Vivek, and the youngest one, daughter Mirabel, and in August 2022, Vance posted: "Eleven years ago, I brought my new girlfriend to the Ohio State Fair. We came back today with three kids in tow".

After graduating from Yale, Vance and his wife moved to San Francisco for a few years in 2010, where Vance worked with a Venture capital firm while his wife joined a law practice. In a 2017, after the success of his book, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance wrote in The New York Times, wherein he noted that as a child who wanted the American dream, the personal story of Barack Obama, which showed that we need not be defeated by the domestic hardships, gave him hope; and Vance felt that he had achieved something similar to Obama's early personal accomplishments: "a prestigious law degree, a strong professional career and a modicum of fame as a writer", though he also mentioned his political disagreements with Obama.

Vance was raised in a "conservative, evangelical" branch of Protestantism. By September 2016, he was "not an active participant" in any particular Christian denomination, but was "thinking very seriously about converting to Catholicism". In August 2019, Vance was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church in a ceremony at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio. He chose Augustine of Hippo as his confirmation saint. Vance said he converted because he "became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true [...] and Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way", further describing Catholic theology's influence on his political views.

In an interview with Catholic magazine First Things, Vance said: "The core Christian insight into politics is that life is inherently dignified and valuable [...] If you actually believe that, you want certain legal protections for the most vulnerable people in your society, but you also want to ensure that workers get a fair wage when they do a fair job. You want to make sure that people don't have their town poisoned because they happen to live next to a railway line".

Vance intends to be buried in a "cemetery plot on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky" where multiple generations of his family have been laid to rest.

Electoral history

Republican primary results

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	J. D. Vance	344,736	32.22%
	Republican	Josh Mandel	255,854	23.92%
	Republican	Matt Dolan	249,239	23.30%
	Republican	Mike Gibbons	124,653	11.65%
	Republican	Jane Timken	62,779	5.87%
	Republican	Mark Pukita	22,692	2.12%
	Republican	Neil Patel	9,873	0.92%
Total votes			1,069,826	100.0%

2022 United States Senate election in Ohio

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	J. D. Vance	2,192,114	53.04%	−4.99%
	Democratic	Tim Ryan	1,939,489	46.92%	+9.76%
	Write-in		1,739	0.04%	N/A
Total votes			4,133,342	100.0%	N/A
	Republican hold

Works

• Vance, J. D. (June 28, 2016). Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper. ISBN 9780062300546. OCLC 952097610.

External links

• J. D. Vance official US Senate website
• Campaign website

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
• Profile at Vote Smart
• Appearances on C-SPAN