a portrait
From critic to candidate: JD Vance is Trump’s running mate. He enters the most important political race in the United States with plenty of rhetorical skills — and allies with deep pockets.
Glowing bulbs for Trump surrogate: JD Vance gets a big crowd at the Republican Party Convention in Milwaukee.
Photo: Matt Rourke/AP
Venture capitalist, renowned author, senator – and soon to be Vice President of the United States? JD Vance is running as Donald Trump’s current son in the race for the White House. This is unusual not only because of his short and turbulent political career, but also because he never had a good word to say to his new boss.
Vance James Donald Bowman was born in 1984 in the US state of Ohio. He studied law at the elite American university Yale and later worked as a venture capitalist in California’s Silicon Valley, among other places. In 2016 he celebrated success with his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy”. The bestseller, also made into a movie, provides insight into a series that made Trump’s election victory possible.
At the beginning of his presidency, Vance was an outspoken critic, calling Trump “dangerous.” However, this opinion changed when he stepped into the political spotlight six years later – and courted Trump as a supporter.
Since winning the 2022 congressional elections, he has represented his home state of Ohio in the Senate, where he is pursuing a populist-nationalist agenda as a supporter of the Republican right. His electoral success is also likely to depend on generous donors he knows from his time on the West Coast.
If he wins in November, Vance, at age 40, would be one of the youngest vice presidents in US history. Due to his good connections with the world of finance on the one hand and his rhetorical strengths on the other, he is considered to be a promising partner in the election campaign.
Vance already made it clear what tone he might take after last weekend’s assassination attempt on Trump: Instead of calling for unity in the country like other politicians, he personally blamed US President Biden for the attack. On Platform So the US media is already calling Vance a “bulldog”, ie a representative who will step into the breach of Trump – as could.