J.D. Vance, potentially the first Ohioan Vice President in nearly a century
Photo via: Wikimedia Commons/Public/Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>
After weeks of public speculation, Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that he has selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential candidate Monday at 3:04 p.m. The pair were formally nominated shortly thereafter. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-North Dakota) were reported to be the other finalists, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Virginia) were rumored to have been considered as well.
Vance is currently serving his first term in the Senate, as he was elected in November 2022. If Trump and Vance are elected in November, then Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) will select his senate replacement. This potential selection would have further implications as some of the top Ohio Republicans expected to be considered are also likely to be considering a run for governor in 2026 to replace the term-limited DeWine. If elected, Vance would become the first vice president from Ohio in nearly a century. The last vice president from Ohio, Charles Dawes, served under President Calvin Coolidge from 1925 to 1929. At 39 years old, Vance would also be the second youngest vice president in history, beaten only by John C. Breckinridge (who served at age 36) and tied with Richard Nixon.
Vance’s appeal to Trump is in part due to Vance’s ability to reach working-class voters in the crucial “blue wall” states that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Trump’s Truth Social post concluded, “J.D. has had a successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond…”
Vance was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, located between Dayton and Cincinnati, and his New York Times bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, is largely focused on his tumultuous upbringing there. Before this book vaulted Vance out of obscurity in 2016, Vance graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Before college, Vance served in the United States Marine Corps, and after graduation, he largely worked as a venture capitalist before entering the political arena.
Trump’s selection comes on the heels of the Saturday assassination attempt against him, and Vance’s comments on the shooting made headlines. While Trump and President Biden have called for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt, Vance posted on X, “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.”
This statement has drawn criticism from the Biden campaign, and Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters Monday that Vance would “bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law.” The Biden campaign is also expected to attack Vance’s record on abortion and his past criticism of Donald Trump.
With Trump’s imprimatur, Vance becomes the favorite to be Trump’s successor as the face of the Republican Party. Vance’s comparatively young age stands out in a presidential race that has been dominated for weeks by questions about the age and mental faculties of President Biden, and to a lesser extent, Donald Trump. Biden is 81; Trump is 78. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate, is also well-suited to provide a more firm intellectual footing to Trump’s ideas. Trump and Vance have both promoted forms of foreign policy isolationism and economic populism, which stand in stark contrast to the hawkishness and free market evangelism of the Reaganite and neoconservative philosophies that had dominated the Republican Party prior.
Trump’s VP announcement came on the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which will continue throughout the week.