James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman;[a] August 2, 1984) is an American politician, attorney, author, and Marine Corps veteran who is the vice president-elect of the United States under President-elect Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 2023 to 2025. Upon assuming office, Vance will be the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history, and the first to be born in the Millennial generation.
JD Vance | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2023 | |
| Vice President-elect of the United States | |
| Assuming office January 20, 2025 | |
| President | Donald Trump (elect) |
| Succeeding | Kamala Harris |
| United States Senator from Ohio | |
| In office January 3, 2023 – January 10, 2025 | |
| Preceded by | Rob Portman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Donald Bowman August 2, 1984 Middletown, Ohio, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | United States Marine Corps |
| Years of service | 2003–2007 |
| Rank | Corporal |
| Unit | 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing |
| Battles/wars | Iraq War |
| Awards | |
| Writing career | |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Notable works | Hillbilly Elegy |
After high school, Vance joined the United States Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and deployed to Iraq for six months in 2005. He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced briefly as a corporate lawyer before embarking on a career in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016 and adapted into a film in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency. In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate before the Republican National Convention. Vance served as Ohio's senator until his resignation in preparation to assume the vice presidency in January 2025.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist, and he describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. His political positions include support for gun rights, opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and American military aid to Ukraine. Vance is an outspoken critic of childlessness and has acknowledged the influence of Catholic theology on his sociopolitical positions.
Early life, military service, and education
Vance was born James Donald Bowman on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio,[2][3] to Beverly Carol (née Vance) and Donald Ray Bowman. He is of Scots-Irish descent.[4][5] His parents divorced when he was a toddler.[3] After Bowman was adopted by his mother's third husband, Bob Hamel, his mother changed his name to James David Hamel to remove his father's name while using an uncle's name to preserve his nickname, JD.[6][7]
Vance has written that his childhood was marked by poverty and abuse, and that his mother struggled with drug addiction.[8] He and his sister Lindsey were raised primarily by their maternal grandparents, James and Bonnie Vance (née Blanton), whom they called "Papaw" and "Mamaw".[9]
At age 17, Vance began his first job, as a cashier at Dillman Foods, a local grocery store.[10] After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003, Vance enlisted in the United States Marine Corps,[11] where he served as a military journalist with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.[12] During his four-year service, he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 for six months in a non-combat role, writing articles and taking photographs.[11] He attained the rank of corporal and his decorations included the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.[13]
Using the G.I. Bill,[14][15] Vance attended Ohio State University from September 2007[16] to August 2009,[17] graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts with majors in political science and philosophy.[18] Vance then attended Yale Law School,[19][20] where he formed a close friendship with Jamil Jivani, a future Conservative member of Canadian parliament,[21] and was a member of The Yale Law Journal.[19] During his first year, Professor Amy Chua persuaded Vance to begin writing his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.[22] In 2010 and 2011, Vance wrote for David Frum's "FrumForum" website under the name J. D. Hamel.[23][24] He graduated in 2013 with a Juris Doctor degree.[19] Although Hillbilly Elegy implies that Vance adopted his grandparents' surname of Vance upon his marriage in 2014,[25] the name change actually occurred in 2013, as he was about to graduate from Yale.[1]
Early career
After graduating from law school, Vance worked for Republican senator John Cornyn. He spent a year as a law clerk for Judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky,[26] then worked at the law firm Sidley Austin,[27] beginning a brief career as a corporate lawyer.[28] Having practiced law for slightly under two years, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist.[19] Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a principal at Peter Thiel's firm, Mithril Capital.[29][30]
In June 2016, Harper published Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The memoir recounts the Appalachian culture and socioeconomic problems of Vance's small-town upbringing.[31] Hillbilly Elegy was on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2016 and 2017. The Times listed it among "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win",[32] and Vance was profiled in The Washington Post, which called him "the voice of the Rust Belt".[33] In The New Republic, Sarah Jones criticized Vance as "liberal media's favorite white trash–splainer" and a "false prophet of blue America", calling the book "little more than a list of myths about welfare queens".[34] Hillbilly Elegy's success helped propel Vance into contact with social elites, and he began writing a column for The New York Times. Vance later said that his interactions with social elites from this time, particularly their perceived disdain for "the people he grew up with", helped shape his later views.[35]
In 2017, Vance joined the investment firm Revolution LLC.[36] It was founded by Steve Case, who co-founded AOL.[36] 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.[36]
Vance was a CNN contributor in 2017 and 2018.[37] 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 released on Netflix for streaming.[38]
In 2019, Vance served on the board of advisors of the With Honor Fund, a Super PAC that helps veterans run for office.[39] From 2020 to 2023, he served on the board of advisors of American Moment, a networking and training organization for young conservatives that is affiliated with Project 2025.[40][41]
In 2019, Vance and Chris Buskirk co-founded the conservative political advocacy group Rockbridge Network.[42] That year, he also co-founded venture capital firm Narya Capital in Cincinnati with financial backing from Thiel, Eric Schmidt, and Marc Andreessen.[43] During 2020, he raised $93 million for the firm.[44] With Thiel and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, Vance has invested in Rumble, a Canadian online video platform popular with the political right.[45][46]
Our Ohio Renewal
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In December 2016, Vance said he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office.[47][33] In Ohio, he started Our Ohio Renewal, a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization focused on education, addiction, and other "social ills" he had mentioned in his memoir.[48] According to a 2017 archived capture of the nonprofit's website, the members of the advisory board were Keith Humphreys, Jamil Jivani, Yuval Levin, and Sally Satel.[49][50] According to a 2020 capture of the website, those four remained in those positions throughout the organization's existence.[51] Our Ohio Renewal closed by 2021 with sparse achievements.[48][52] According to Jivani, the organization's director of law and policy, its work was derailed by Jivani's cancer diagnosis.[53][54] It raised around $221,000 in 2017 (including $80,000 from Vance himself) and spent the majority of its revenue on overhead costs and travel. In subsequent years, it raised less than $50,000.[50][55]
During Vance's 2022 campaign for U.S. 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.[56][57][b] Our Ohio Renewal's tax filings showed that in its first year, it spent more (over $63,000) 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.[61][50] In 2017, Vance formed a similarly named 501(c)(3) organization, Our Ohio Renewal Foundation, which raised around $69,000 from 2017 to 2023.[55] As of September 2024, the foundation had not spent any funds since 2019.[62]
According to the Associated Press (AP) and ProPublica, 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.[63][64][50]
AppHarvest
From March 2017 to April 2021, Vance served on the board of directors of the startup AppHarvest, which carried out indoor vertical farming in Kentucky. AppHarvest was also one of Narya Capital's first publicly announced investments; touting the company's commitment to bring good jobs with health care benefits to an economically depressed area of Appalachia, Vance publicly advocated for AppHarvest, in February 2021 telling the media that it was "not just a good investment opportunity, it's a great business that's making a big difference in the world". AppHarvest went bankrupt in 2023 while owing over $340 million. Citing interviews with former AppHarvest workers, CNN reported that some of them believed "Vance and other board members should have recognized and responded to warning signs that company officials were misleading the public and their own investors."[65] Company founder Jonathan Webb and top executives collectively had little experience with horticulture and indoor agriculture, and the company struggled to meet its produce buyers' standards.[66] Workers complained to authorities about "brutal" working conditions stemming from high temperatures in company greenhouses coupled with allegedly heavy production demands, lack of safety gear, and few rest and water breaks. After many local workers quit, they were replaced by migrant contract workers mostly from Mexico and Guatemala, who eventually constituted over half the company's labor force.[65][66] Vance never held an operational role at the company, and his vice-presidential campaign said he had been unaware of the complaints about working conditions and that the decision to hire migrants was made after he resigned from the board.[65][66]
U.S. Senate (2023–2025)
2022 campaign
- 80–90%
- 70–80%
- 60–70%
- 50–60%
- 60–70%
- 50–60%
In early 2018, Vance considered running for the U.S. Senate against Sherrod Brown,[67] but did not.[68] In March 2021, Peter Thiel gave $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC created in February to support a potential Vance candidacy.[69][70][71] Robert Mercer also gave an undisclosed amount.[69] In April, Vance expressed interest in running for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman.[72] In May, he launched an exploratory committee.[73]
Vance announced his Senate campaign in Ohio on July 1, 2021.[3] On May 3, 2022, he won the Republican primary with 32% of the vote,[74] defeating multiple candidates, including Josh Mandel (23%) and Matt Dolan (22%).[75] On November 8, in the general election, Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote to Ryan's 47%.[3][76] This vote share was considered a vast underperformance compared to other Ohio Republicans, especially in the coinciding gubernatorial election.[77] Vance had often previously spelled his name with periods after his initials ("J.D.")—including in the publication of Hillbilly Elegy—but after becoming a candidate for office, he removed the periods ("JD").[1]
Tenure
On January 3, 2023, Vance was sworn in to the Senate as a member of the 118th United States Congress. Data from mid-July 2024 showed that he had made 45 Senate speeches and sponsored 57 legislative bills, none of which had passed the Senate. Vance had also co-sponsored 288 bills, of which two passed both the Senate and the House, but were vetoed by President Biden.[78]Axios reported that Vance responded to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, before top Biden administration officials were visibly engaged. Vance criticized the Biden administration for what he saw as a lackluster response to the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals, which were later released in a controlled burn. The Biden administration said that federal investigators were on scene soon after the derailment, although it eventually sent Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to visit the scene as well.[79][80] Vance's office posted on social media about the derailment a day after it occurred and his office released an official statement within 10 days. Vance himself visited the area about two weeks after the derailment.[80][81] On February 26, 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.[82][83]
On March 1, Vance and Senator Sherrod Brown cosponsored bipartisan legislation to prevent derailments like the one in East Palestine,[84][85] but the bill failed due to lack of intra-caucus Republican support.[86][87][88] In June 2023, Vance collaborated with Senator Elizabeth Warren to claw back executive pay when big banks fail.[89] The same month, he voted against raising the debt ceiling, standing against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023[90] and saying it would result in "a reduced military in the face of a rising threat from China".[91]
In July 2023, Vance and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced legislation that would have made gender-affirming care for minors a federal crime, with penalties of up to 12 years in prison.[92] In June 2024, Vance sponsored the Dismantle DEI Act, which would ban federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and funding for agencies, contractors, and organizations receiving federal funds.[93][94] Vance was not present for any Senate votes during his vice-presidential campaign.[95][96] Vance resigned from the Senate at midnight on January 10, 2025, in anticipation of his inauguration as the 50th vice president of the United States on January 20, 2025.[97]
Committee assignments
2024 presidential election
Vice-presidential campaign
On January 31, 2023, Vance endorsed former president Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries.[98][99] On July 15, 2024, the first day of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced that he had chosen Vance as his running mate in a post on Truth Social.[100] On July 17, the third day of the convention, Vance accepted the nomination to be Trump's running mate.[101]
Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, advocated for their father to choose Vance. Several media and industry figures are said to have lobbied for Vance to be on the presidential ticket, including Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, Tucker Carlson, and Peter Thiel, who first introduced Trump to Vance in 2021.[102][103] The Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025, privately advocated for Vance to be Trump's vice-presidential pick.[104] Musk responded to Trump's vice-presidential pick hours after its announcement, saying the ticket "resounds with victory". David Sacks, a prominent GOP donor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, wrote on Twitter: "This is who I want by Trump's side: an American patriot." In 2022, Sacks gave a super PAC supporting Vance's Senate campaign $900,000, and Peter Thiel added $15 million.[105] It was initially reported that Elon Musk would contribute $45 million monthly to the Trump-Vance campaign,[106] but Musk later said he planned to donate "much lower amounts".[107][108]
On May 15, 2024, Trump attended a $50,000 per head private fundraising dinner with Vance in Cincinnati.[109] Guests included Chris Bortz and Republican fundraiser Nate Morris.[110] Vance appeared at significant conservative political events and in June was described as a potential running mate for Trump.[111][112] In July, a former friend of Vance's from Yale Law School exposed to the media communications between them and Vance from 2014 to 2017, with the friend alleging that Vance has "changed [his] opinion on literally every imaginable issue that affects everyday Americans" in pursuit of "political power and wealth".[113][114]
In late July 2024, after President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for reelection and Vice President Kamala Harris became a presidential candidate, Vance said at a private fundraiser that the "bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden ... Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did"; a day later, Vance told the media: "I don't think the political calculus changes at all" whether Harris or Biden was the Democratic nominee.[115] Following criticism of his past remarks and political positions, Vance said in an August 2024 interview that a vice president "doesn't really matter" and that "Kamala Harris has been a bad vice president".[116] This came after Trump said that the "vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact".[116] In late August, after the Trump campaign was embroiled in controversy for allegedly bringing cameras into a restricted area of Arlington National Cemetery during Trump's visit there, Vance first said that Harris "can go to hell" because "she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up", and then said "Don't do this fake outrage thing" even though at the time of his comments, Harris had not publicly discussed the incident.[117][118][119]
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In August 2024, Vance said that Trump "said that explicitly that he would" veto a national abortion ban.[120] In September 2024, during his debate with Harris, Trump was asked about Vance's statement about the veto, and responded: "I didn't discuss it with JD ... I think he was speaking for me—but I really didn't."[121][122]
In late September 2024, Vance spoke at a western Pennsylvania town hall event organized by top Christian nationalist leaders who promote election denialism. The organizers characterize Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a "demon".[123][124][125] In October 2024, Vance said that he did not believe Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, saying that he believed "Big Tech rigged the election" through censorship.[126]
Comments on childlessness
Shortly after being named Trump's running mate, Vance was criticized for saying in a 2021 Fox News interview, "we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too."[127] The resurfaced comments, which were posted by MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski, sparked an immediate backlash across news and social media.[128][129] On July 26, 2024, Vance clarified his remarks on The Megyn Kelly Show, saying, "It's not a criticism of people who don't have children" and "this is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child".[130] He has said that being "pro-babies and pro-family" should be the Republican Party's highest priority.[131]
After backlash to the Fox News interview, additional comments that Vance had made in interviews about childless people resurfaced. In a 2020 podcast interview, he said that being childless "makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less, less mentally stable".[132] Vance's campaign referred to "radical childless leaders in this country" in a fundraising email sent after his appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. CNN found multiple examples of Vance making similarly disparaging remarks about childless people, primarily Democratic officials.[133] In a 2021 speech at a Center for Christian Virtue leadership meeting, Vance said that childless teachers were "trying to brainwash the minds of our children" and criticized American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, saying: "If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone."[134] He also suggested in a March 2021 interview on The Charlie Kirk Show that childless people should be taxed at a higher rate than those with children, adding that the U.S. should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad".[135] In an August 2024 interview on Face the Nation, Vance said he supported increasing the child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $5,000 per child, even though his Senate Republican colleagues had blocked an expanded child tax credit two weeks earlier while he was absent for the vote, having called it a "show vote" and saying it would not have passed even if he had been present.[136][137]
Comments on Haitian immigrants
In September 2024, Vance made allegations of "Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country". Trump subsequently echoed the allegations, including during a presidential debate. Springfield authorities said there were "no credible reports or specific claims" of such incidents and that "Haitian immigrants are here legally".[138][139] Vance then said that it was "possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false", but also told his supporters to "keep the cat memes flowing".[140] He then promoted conservative activist Christopher Rufo's allegation that African migrants were eating cats in Dayton, Ohio; Dayton authorities reported "no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets".[141][142]
After Vance's claim about Haitians eating pets was disputed, he said: "Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here"; the child had actually died in an accidental collision between vehicles in Springfield, and the child's father criticized Vance for using the child's "death for political gain".[143][144] Vance also alleged a "massive rise in communicable diseases" in Springfield, but Clark County's health commissioner reported having "not seen a substantial increase in all reportable communicable diseases".[145] After Vance's and Trump's allegations, Springfield experienced multiple bomb threats in September. Vance denounced "violence or the threat of violence levied against Springfield", but continued his allegations against immigrants there.[146] He defended his claims about Haitian migrants eating cats, saying that he was willing "to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention … we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it."[147]
Debate
The vice presidential debate was held on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. EDT at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.[148]
Vance's debate performance was praised by political pundits, and he was declared the winner by columnists from The New York Times,[149] The Wall Street Journal,[150] the Los Angeles Times,[151] USA Today,[152] the Financial Times,[153] and Politico.[154] The columnists from The Washington Post[155] and Reuters[156] commended both Vance and Walz for the high level of civility and focus on policy in the debate.
The New York Times wrote that Vance delivered "one of the best debating performances by a Republican nominee for president or vice president in recent memory", making a strong case for Trump's record while also emphasizing his own personal biography, after facing weeks of attacks from the Democrats.[149] Politico noted that Vance offered an effective critique of Biden-Harris administration, while managing to move past his controversial past statements about women and immigrants.[154] However, he did face criticism for not acknowledging Trump's loss of the 2020 election.[154]Opinion polls
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In July 2024, a CNN poll analysis after the Republican National Convention showed a net-negative approval rating for Vance.[77] That week, Vance's middling public reception and other concerns led some prominent Republican politicians and political analysts to say that he may have been a poor choice of running mate, especially in light of the shift in the election's dynamics upon the withdrawal of President Biden from the election and advent of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.[157]
An August 2024 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll highlighted that both Vance and Walz were still relatively unknown, with roughly 3 in 10 U.S. adults not knowing enough about Vance and only 27% having a favorable opinion of him, compared to 36% for Walz, though 57% of Republicans were supportive of Vance.[158]
A September 2024 Gallup poll showed that 41% of registered voters rated Vance as either an "excellent" or a "pretty good" choice versus 46% for Walz. These evaluations were quite similar to those of previous vice-presidential nominees; Mike Pence had a 43% rating as Trump's running mate in 2016.[159]
After the October 2024 vice-presidential debate, polling from CBS News and YouGov found that Vance's favorability increased from 40% to 49% among the surveyed likely voters who watched the debate, and that his unfavorability decreased from 54% to 47%.[160] According to The Hill, as of October 5, Vance's favorability rating stood at 39.3%,[161] up from 35.1% in an October 2 FiveThirtyEight polling average,[162] and rose to 42.6% as of October 28.[163]
Political positions
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During his time in the U.S. Senate, JD Vance has been described as national conservative,[164][165] right-wing populist,[164][166] and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan.[167] Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right.[168][169][170][171] He is known for his ties to Silicon Valley.[172] Vance has said he is "plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures" online.[170] He has endorsed books by Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts and far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.[173][174]
On social issues, Vance is considered conservative.[175] He opposes abortion,[176][177] same-sex marriage,[175] and gun control.[178][179][180] He has taken a number of natalist positions. He has repeatedly expressed his belief that childlessness is linked to sociopathy, and advocated that parents have more voting power than non-parents,[181][182] but in August 2024, he backtracked from that suggestion.[183] Vance has lamented that increased divorces adversely affect children of divorced parents.[184] He has proposed federal criminalization of gender-affirming care for minors.[185] He supports Israel in the Israel–Hamas war.[186] He opposes continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion and prefers a negotiated peace.[187][188][189] Vance has argued that the country's largest and most powerful institutions have united against the right and has called for "a de-woke-ification program".[190][191] He is critical of universities, which he has called "the enemy".[192] Vance is also critical of both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[193]
In 2016, Vance was an outspoken critic of then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling him "reprehensible" and "America's Hitler"[194][195] and himself a "never Trump guy".[196][197] In 2021, after Vance announced his Senate candidacy, he publicly announced support for Trump, apologizing for his past criticisms of Trump and deleting some of them.[198][199] That year, Vance advised Trump to fire "every civil servant" to replace them with "our people".[200] Vance has said that, unlike Trump's vice president Mike Pence, if he had been vice president during the 2020 presidential election, he would not have certified the election results, instead insisting that some states that Trump lost should send pro-Trump electors so that Congress could decide the election.[201]Personal life
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Vance wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that he was raised in a low-income family by his single mother and grandmother.[202] In 2013, Vance met Usha Chilukuri while both were students at Yale Law School.[203] In 2014, they married in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony,[204][205] as she is Hindu and he is Christian.[204][206] Their wedding included a Bible reading by Vance's "best friend", Jamil Jivani,[53][207] and the bride and groom were blessed by a Hindu pandit.[203][208] Usha clerked for a year for Brett Kavanaugh, then an appeals court judge in Washington, then clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts for a year.[209]
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".[210] 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 alignment with his political views.[211][212] Vance was influenced to convert to Catholicism by Peter Thiel.[213]
Electoral history
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | JD 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% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | JD Vance | 2,192,114 | 53.04% | N/A | |
| Democratic | Tim Ryan | 1,939,489 | 46.92% | N/A | |
| Write-in | 1,739 | 0.04% | N/A | ||
| Total votes | 4,133,342 | 100.0% | N/A | ||
| Republican hold | |||||
Works
- Vance, J. D. (2016). Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-230054-6. LCCN 2016304613. OCLC 952097610.
- Vance, J. D. (September 24, 2024). Foreword. Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. By Roberts, Kevin. Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0-06-335350-3.[215]
Notes
References
External links
- JD Vance official U.S. Senate website
- Campaign website