It wasn’t the theatrical reveal that Donald Trump wanted, a made-for-TV moment in which the former President would stroll on stage with his VP pick. Instead, he announced on Truth Social that Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio will be his running mate. “After lengthy deliberation and thought,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, he chose Vance because he was “the best person suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States.”
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By selecting Vance, Trump has elevated a leading light of the right-wing populist movement spawned by Trump’s rise rather than someone from another faction of the conservative movement. Vance has been a vociferous critic of U.S. aid to Ukraine and other foreign entanglements; a proponent of restrictive immigration policies and an aggressive deportation operation; and a champion of Trump’s protectionist trade regime and high tariffs on imported goods. “It’s part of the agenda to re-industrialize the country,” Vance told me in April.
In other words, Trump chose a MAGA favorite who he believes can shore up Rust Belt voters in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He’s also popular with a specific subset of Silicon Valley donors who can tap into their vast reservoirs of wealth in the coming months.
Vance, 39, has an unorthodox biography. As he chronicled in his bestselling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, he grew up in rural Ohio surrounded by social and economic decline. After serving in the Marines as a combat correspondent covering the Iraq War, Vance enrolled in Ohio State University, graduating summa cum laude in political science and philosophy. He then went to Yale Law School and became editor of the Yale Law Review. His path from there hardly resembles the traditional arc of an America First disciple. Vance worked at the elite law firm Sidley Austin—the same one where Barack and Michelle Obama met—and moved to San Francisco to become a venture capitalist, working with entrepreneur Peter Thiel.
After publishing Hillbilly Elegy, Vance was widely seen as a tribune of the working class. The book is infused with a self-styled conservatism that promotes personal responsibility and self reliance. To critics, it was a disparaging portrait of the deindustrialized heartland that blames the victims for their own downward mobility.
When Trump emerged as a dominant political force, Vance was a vocal opponent and privately wrote to a former law school roommate that he might be “America’s Hitler.” In February 2016, he wrote in USA Today op-ed that “Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.”
The origins of Vance’s metamorphosis has been a source of endless media speculation. But by the time he became a Senate candidate two years ago, he was a full-throated populist nationalist. His tirades against U.S. assistance to help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s invasion caught the attention of Donald Trump, Jr., Trump’s eldest son. He soon brought Vance on his popular right-wing podcast Triggered and the two formed a close friendship. Since then, Trump Jr. has been one of his most important advocates, encouraging his father to endorse Vance for Senate in 2022 and to pick him as his running mate in 2024.
In his Truth Social post, Trump commended Vance’s credentials and life story. For the former President, Vance has two profound virtues at once. His hardscrabble background gives him a genuine connection to the white working-class voters who animate Trump’s base and will have outsize influence in the election. At the same time, his rebellion against the elites whose circles he once traveled in gives him an apostate’s appeal.
Those characteristics make him distinctive from Trump’s other top running mate contenders. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was seen as a safe choice well-liked by the business community. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was another donor-friendly prospect who could help Trump win a state that has gone for Democrats in the last four elections. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida held the potential to grow the Republican tent and court Hispanic voters. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina would have marked a pitch to Black voters and been a popular choice with evangelical Christians.
For his part, Vance was the most ideologically aligned with Trump. Sources familiar with Trump’s thinking say the former President was impressed with his recent television appearances, emphasizing his articulate charisma and ability to think on his feet. The two also developed a personal relationship in recent years. Trump will often call him at random to discuss political strategy. “Sometimes he takes my advice. Sometimes he doesn’t take my advice,” Vance told me last spring. “Sometimes he gives me advice.”
If Vance helps Trump with blue collar voters in the midwest, his history of opposing abortion access could hurt the ticket with suburban women. In recent months, he has adopted Trump’s position that abortion should be a states-rights issue. “I think states largely should figure out the abortion question themselves,” Vance told me, but he didn’t rule out some restrictions. “I think it’s reasonable for the federal government to set some minimum standard, and then let the states figure out 90% of abortion policy from there.”
Vance was the most aggressive of the contenders for the job. Hours after Trump survived an attempted assassination on Saturday, Vance blamed President Joe Biden for the attack. “Today is not just some isolated incident,” Vance wrote. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all cost. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Authorities have not identified the shooter’s motive.
Should Trump win, Vance will become a front runner for the 2028 Republican nomination. Many are expecting a spirited contest among Trump devotees who hope to succeed him in leading the MAGA movement. Some in Trump’s inner circle doubted that the former President would want to choose a potential heir. But in J.D. Vance, he just might have done that.