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At the Republican National Convention this July, former President Trump announced his new choice for second-in-command, as he seeks a return to the Oval Office: JD Vance, the junior senator from Ohio.
Vance rose to fame after his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy was released in 2016, just months before Trump would go on to be elected President. His views about the New York mogul at the time, however, were much different: Vance would spend much of his book tour criticising the former President — calling him “reprehensible” on Twitter, suggesting he would “hold his nose and vote for Hillary Clinton,” and calling himself “a ‘Never Trump’ guy”. Privately – he called Donald Trump “America’s Hitler.” Nowadays, he’s Trump’s staunchest ally – and second-in-command. What changed? How did we — and he — get here?
In 2016, JD Vance’s HIllbilly Elegy propelled the then-venture capitalist to stardom among Republicans — even as he rejected Trump at the time. The memoir, and later, Netflix movie, provides an insight into Vance’s pre-political career.
The now-senator was raised between Jackson, Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio, living primarily with his maternal grandparents as his mother suffered from addiction. The novel details how Vance himself suffered from both poverty and domestic violence during his childhood. Soon after graduating high school, he joined the armed forces as part of the Marine Corps, serving for four years – including a six-month deployment to Iraq in 2005. He went on to attend Ohio State University and, later, Yale Law School, where he began to pen the memoir that boosted him to fame.
It was after he graduated from Yale, however, that JD Vance would start to make the connections that propelled him to political office – and, eventually, the vice-presidential ticket. After leaving Yale Law, Vance went into the venture capital sphere. He picked up a job as a principal (someone who identifies opportunities for investing) at Mithril Capital, headed by PayPal founder and controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Even after his memoir was released, he would stay in the venture capital space — moving to the firm Revolution, which organised a ‘Rise of the Rest’ fund dedicated to supporting tech star-tups in rural white America, and then founding his own firm with financial backing by names such as Thiel and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. These connections came in handy for Vance during his 2022 run for the U.S. Senate, where a political action committee set up in support of Vance received over $15 million in donations from Thiel.
In the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections, Vance softened his stance on Trump: deleting tweets critical of the former president and praising his time in office. When it came time for Vance’s race for senate, Trump provided a muted, yet certain endorsement that was crucial in a packed primary race — claiming that Vance “gets it now,” despite what he had said about Trump previously. Fast forward two years, and the same venture capitalists financially supporting Vance’s senate race were urging Trump to select him as a running mate.
Vance’s upbringing in rural America and career experience in venture capital was an asset for the Trump team — one which, at the time, seemed to come with little drawbacks. Trump’s campaign, coasting on Biden’s perception as a weak candidate, expected an electoral landslide. For them, a Vice Presidential pick wasn’t a matter of strategy, or picking up undecided voters, in the same way it currently is for Kamala HQ. Instead, it was an opportunity to galvanise the base.
That was where Vance came into play. Noticing that Biden had gained ground amongst both college-educated and not-college-educated white voters, the Trump campaign listened to the venture capitalists and saw an opportunity in Vance: someone who could appeal to both. Unlike 2016, the Trump campaign didn’t see a need to pick a Pence-style figure to appeal to moderates.
Some in the Republican Party now worry that may have been a mistake. Kamala Harris has inspired newfound momentum in the Democratic Party. Online, that looks like a “brat summer”-powered campaign targeting youth voters. Offline, that looks like a line of attack, from TV to rallies, hinging on Vance’s perceived “weirdness.”
Vance’s hard-right opinions on social issues, from his opposition to transgender healthcare to support for abortion bans, are ammunition for a newly-galvanised Democratic campaign. His comments on “childless cat ladies” have been widely criticised as misogynistic and he has the worst approval rating of a VP pick — ever.
Vance has galvanised and consolidated Trump’s base. But can he expand it? Only November will tell.
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