JD Vance, born James Donald Bowman in 1984 in Middletown, Ohio, emerged from a childhood marked by poverty, abuse, and his mother’s drug addiction, largely raised by his Appalachian grandparents. After serving as a Marine Corps combat correspondent in Iraq, he used the GI Bill to study at Ohio State University and Yale Law School, where he began writing Hillbilly Elegy. The 2016 memoir, chronicling his family and “hillbilly” culture, became a bestseller and a touchstone for understanding white working-class anger after Donald Trump’s election, while also provoking criticism for reinforcing stereotypes about poverty.
Vance shifted from corporate law into venture capital, working with Peter Thiel and later co-founding Narya Capital and the Rockbridge Network. He flirted with nonprofit anti-addiction efforts and regional investment projects like AppHarvest, with mixed and sometimes controversial results. Initially a self-described “never Trump guy,” he reversed himself as he entered politics, winning an Ohio U.S. Senate seat in 2022 with heavy backing from Trump and key right-wing donors.
As a senator, Vance embraced national conservative and postliberal ideas, opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, gender-affirming care for minors, gun control, and U.S. support for Ukraine, while promoting natalist rhetoric and a combative stance toward universities and federal institutions. Chosen as Trump’s running mate in 2024, he became the first Marine Corps veteran to serve as vice president in 2025. In office, he has cast pivotal votes, criticized judicial checks on executive power, confronted European allies, pushed an assertive, transactional foreign policy, and intertwined his Catholic conversion with an “America First” vision that has even drawn rebukes from popes.