Who Is JD Vance? The Vice President-Elect Of US Was Once A Harsh Critic Of Trump

Last Updated:November 06, 2024, 14:55 IST

JD Vance, 40, is a venture capitalist and the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

Vance will be the youngest vice-president since Richard Nixon, who served two terms under Dwight Eisenhower. (Image: PTI)

“Now I can say Vice President-elect of the United States," said US President-elect Donald Trump as he praised his running mate JD Vance and his wife Usha in his victory speech as the Republicans were on their way to victory in the United States Presidential Election 2024.

Once a harsh critic of Donald Trump, Vance, on Tuesday, called his victory a “historic one." “We just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America. Under President Trump’s leadership, we’re never going to stop fighting for you, for your dreams, and for the future of your children. And after the greatest political comeback in American history, we’re going to lead the greatest economic comeback in American history," Vance said.

Who is JD Vance?

Vance, 40, is a venture capitalist and the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy. He was elected to the Senate in 2022 after receiving a boost from Trump in a contentious Republican primary. He will be the youngest vice-president since Richard Nixon, who served two terms under Dwight Eisenhower, starting 1953.

According to CNN, the senator’s appeal to working-class voters was viewed as essential when it comes to winning the key battleground states. His upbringing in a poor Rust Belt town in Ohio and his wife Usha Chilukuri – with her Indian roots – were seen as factors that could appeal to minority voters.

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Vance’s bestseller about his roots in rural Kentucky and blue-collar Ohio made him a national celebrity soon after its publication in the summer of 2016. It became a cultural talking point after Donald Trump’s stunning victory that November.

He first thought of his memoir while studying at Yale Law School. In his memoir, Vance reflects on the transformation of Appalachia from reliably Democratic to reliably Republican, sharing stories about his chaotic family life and about communities that had declined and seemed to lose hope.

“I was very bugged by this question of why there weren’t more kids like me at places like Yale… why isn’t there more upward mobility in the United States?" Vance told The Associated Press in 2016.

“I felt that if I wrote a very forthright, and sometimes painful, book, that it would open people’s eyes to the very real matrix of these problem," Vance had said in 2016. “If I wrote a more abstract or esoteric essay… then not as many people would pay attention to it because they would assume I was just another academic spouting off, and not someone who’s looked at these problems in a very personal way."

Once A Trump Critic, Now His VP

Vance was a key voice in the ‘Never Trump’ movement during the 2016 election and was liking social media posts that harshly criticised Trump, presenting a well-documented history of opposing him privately as well as publicly.

In the same year, he wrote privately on Facebook to Josh McLaurin, his former law school roommate who later became a state Senator in Georgia, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole… or that he’s America’s Hitler."

In 2016 and 2017, Vance called Trump “cultural heroin" and “just another opioid" for Middle America. “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologise for this man. Lord help us," he said in a social media post after the Access Hollywood tape was published in 2016.

Cut to 2022, however, Trump began to see Vance as an ally after concerted efforts to endorsing ‘Make America Great Again’. The senator also displayed his loyalty by standing at Trump’s side at a New York courthouse during his criminal hush money trial.

Vance is a vocal opponent of foreign aid, opposing legislation to send more aid from the US to Ukraine amid Russia’s war. He also brings ties to traditionally liberal-leaning Silicon Valley.

One a Trump critic, Vance is now set to work by Trump’s side as Vice President for the next four years.

(With agency inputs)

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