JD Vance

J. D. 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, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Usha Chilukuri ​ (m. 2014)​
Children	3
Alma mater	Ohio State University (BA) Yale University (JD)
Occupation	Politician author 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

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. He is a member of the Republican Party. He is the Republican nominee for vice president in the 2024 election.

Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance served in the Marine Corps and attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013. He came to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which describes his upbringing in the Rust Belt, poverty, drug addiction, and Appalachian culture. It became a New York Times bestseller and was later made into a film. It attracted significant press attention during the 2016 United States presidential election. Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan in the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio. Initially opposed to his candidacy in the 2016 election, he has become a strong supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election, and he was officially nominated at the Republican National Convention on July 15.

During his time in the Senate, Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, national conservative, and a right-wing populist, and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. He has cited Curtis Yarvin and Patrick Deneen as leading political influences. Vance has been considered a maverick for his willingness to break from Republican orthodoxy and supports raising the minimum wage, furthering unionization, a robust and interventionist antitrust policy, and has opposed most foreign policy interventions, including continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion.

Early life and education

Vance in the U.S. Marine Corps, 2003

Vance was born as James Donald Bowman 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, he was adopted by his mother's third husband.

Vance's 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 (née Blanton; 1933-2005) Vance, whom they called "Mamaw and Papaw." J. D. later went by the name James Hamel, his stepfather's surname, until adopting his grandparents' surname, Vance.

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 and assigned to the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Vance graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and philosophy. While at Ohio State, he worked for Republican state senator Bob Schuler.

After graduating from Ohio State, Vance attended Yale Law School. During his first year, his professor Amy Chua, author of the 2011 book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, persuaded him to write his memoir. He was an editor of the The Yale Law Journal and graduated in 2013 with a Juris Doctor.

Early career

Vance in 2017

After law school, Vance worked for Senator John Cornyn and then spent a year as a law clerk for judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. He then entered private practice at the law firm Sidley Austin. In 2016, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. He served as a principal at Peter Thiel's firm, Mithril Capital, between 2016 and 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. It was a finalist for the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and winner of the 2017 Audie Award for Nonfiction. The New York Times called it "one of the six best books to help understand Trump's win". The Washington Post called him 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."

In December 2016, Vance indicated that he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office. Back 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 organization shuttered in less than two years with few accomplishments. During the 2022 campaign for the Senate seat, Tim Ryan, his Democratic rival, 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. According to the Associated Press (AP), the charity's biggest accomplishment, sending Dr. Sally Satel to Ohio's Appalachian region for a yearlong residency (2018), was tainted by the ties among Dr. Satel, her employer, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Purdue Pharma, in the form of knowledge exchange between Dr. Satel and Purdue, and financial support from Purdue to AEI, as found by a ProPublica 2019 investigation. In an email to AP, Dr. Satel denied having any relationship with Purdue and any knowledge of Purdue's donations to AEI.

In 2017, Vance joined Revolution LLC, an investment firm founded by AOL cofounder Steve Case, as an investment partner, where he was tasked with expanding the "Rise of the Rest" initiative, which focuses on growing investments in under-served regions outside the Silicon Valley and New York City tech bubbles.

In January 2017, Vance became a CNN contributor. In April 2017, Ron Howard signed on to direct a film version of Hillbilly Elegy, which Netflix released in 2020, starring Owen Asztalos and Gabriel Basso as Vance.

In 2019, Vance co-founded Narya Capital in Cincinnati with financial backing from 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.

U.S. Senate

2022 campaign

Main article: 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio

Final results by county in 2022:

  J.D. Vance

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

  Tim Ryan

•   60–70%
•   50–60%

In early 2018, Vance considered running for U.S. Senate against Sherrod Brown, but decided not to. 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 Republican Rob Portman. In May, he launched an exploratory committee. Vance is an ally of Republican fundraiser Nate Morris who has also provided financial support to Senator Rand Paul.

In July 2021, Vance officially entered the race; 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%). In the general election on November 8, Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote to Ryan's 47%.

Tenure

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

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. Vance and others countered that he had tweeted about the derailment the day after it occurred.

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.

Vance was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

Committee assignments

For the 118th United States Congress, Vance was named to three Senate committees. They are:

• 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

On January 31, 2023, Vance endorsed former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries. Trump attended a $50,000 per head private fundraising dinner with Vance in Cincinnati on May 15, 2024. Guests included Chris Bortz and Republican fundraiser Nate Morris. On July 15, 2024, during the 2024 Republican National Convention, Trump announced that he chose Vance as his running mate via a post on Truth Social.

Vance speaking at the 2024 People's Convention

David A. Graham of The Atlantic noted of Vance's selection:

Vance brings youth and intellect to the Republican ticket. He could also strengthen the ticket in the upper Midwest, which Joe Biden must win to be reelected (although Ohio is expected to be a safe Republican state). Unlike Trump, he is a military veteran and a real product of the working class.

While noting that:

The interview with the Times’ Douthat shows how hard Vance is to pin down and take in. It’s possible to discern the outlines of a post-Trump Trumpism that is serious and policy-minded, in contrast to the shallower culture-war approach taken by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He expresses ideas on taxation, employment, and other economic issues that would appeal to many Democratic voters. He speaks about tariffs in a more sophisticated manner than Trump ever has. And although he has been a leading critic of the Biden administration’s policy in Ukraine, his view is more nuanced than Trump’s simple isolationism, and you won’t find him fanboying Vladimir Putin. “It is not in our interest” for the Russians to conquer Ukraine, he told Douthat.

Graham argued that Vance was a potential leader of the Republican Party.

Political positions

Vance is a leading figure of the neoreactionary movement. He has cited the political theorist Curtis Yarvin (pictured), a personal friend, as a leading influence on his beliefs.

During his time in the Senate, Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, national conservative, a right-wing populist, a populist conservative, and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. He has cited Curtis Yarvin and Patrick Deneen as leading political influences. Vance has been considered a maverick for his willingness to break from Republican orthodoxy and supports raising the minimum wage, furthering unionization, a robust and interventionist antitrust policy, and has opposed most foreign policy interventions, including continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion.

Dark Enlightenment and Neoreactionary thought

Vance is considered a member of The Dark Enlightenment. He is close friends with Curtis Yarvin, who he has described as a leading political influence, citing his writings as a leading inspiration on his ideology.

Abortion

Vance personally opposes abortion and he has indicated that he may support a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks, but more recently he said that abortion laws should be set by the states. When asked whether abortion laws should include exceptions for rape and incest, he said, "two wrong[s] don't make a right"; however, he has also stated that he always believed that there needed to be exceptions for rape, incest, and preserving a mother's life.

Vance has likened abortion to slavery, stating in an interview with the Catholic Current that "There's something comparable between abortion and slavery".

LGBT rights

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

Immigration and border security

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 border wall are racist. Vance has proposed spending $3 billion to finish Trump's wall. In 2022, he 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." This led to political opponent Tim Ryan's allegations that Vance was endorsing the far-right, white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, according to which there is an effort to replace white Americans with immigrants. Ryan later lost to Vance. During his 2022 U.S. Senate campaign, Vance said that President Joe Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs by not enforcing security at the southern border, a claim The New York Times called "blatantly false".

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

Foreign policy

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Vance said the U.S. did not want to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but argued the U.S. should shift its focus to East Asia and that certain European and NATO member countries are not spending enough for their own security.

Israel-Palestine conflict

Vance supports U.S. funding to Israel in the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. Vance has criticized the Biden administration for "depriving the Israelis of the precision guided weapons" the country needs, and states that Hamas bears full responsibility for all civilian deaths. He criticized Biden in April 2024 for 'micromanaging' Israeli actions in the war, stating "you've got to, first of all, enable Israel to actually finish the job".

When asked whether he would support military action against Iran after militias allegedly connected to Iran attacked U.S. troops, Vance said that it would be a "mistake", citing concern it would be a significant escalation.

Russia-Ukraine war

Vance is a vocal critic of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. In an interview with Steve Bannon, Vance stated "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other".

He has said it is in America's interest to accept that "Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians". Vance has faced bipartisan criticism for his views on Ukraine. In December 2023, he 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".

Views on child-free marriages, divorce, and domestic abuse

In a 2021 speech to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance blamed "the childless left" for America's woes. 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.

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.'" 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". In recent decades, rates of domestic violence have decreased. A strategist for Vance called Vice's characterization misleading and said Vance does not support people staying in abusive relationships.

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, a Biden administration member, 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." He also 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 also 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 would create a $7,500 tax credit for gas-powered cars manufactured in the U.S.

Relationship with Donald Trump

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 2016 USA Today column, he wrote that "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." In the Atlantic and on the PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, Vance called Trump "cultural heroin" and "an opioid of the masses." In October 2016, he called Trump "reprehensible" in a post on Twitter, and called himself a "never-Trump guy." In a private message on Facebook he described Trump as "a cynical asshole like Nixon" and "America's Hitler". Vance disclosed that he did not vote for Trump in the 2016 election, but instead voted for a third-party candidate.

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 that 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 regarding his U.S. 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 U.S. 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".

Labor unions

Vance has said, "As an abstract matter, yes, I support collective bargaining." He 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. Vance spoke in support of the 2023 United Auto Workers strike.

Personal life

Vance has been married to a former law school classmate, Usha Chilukuri, since 2014. They have three children. During the mid-2010s, Vance and his wife lived in San Francisco.

Vance was raised in a "conservative, evangelical" branch of Protestantism, but by September 2016, he was "thinking very seriously about converting to Catholicism" but was "not an active participant" in any particular Christian denomination. 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.

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. At the Internet Archive.

External links

• J. D. Vance official U.S. 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