Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance with his wife, Usha, at the birth of their child. Vance was chosen as a running mate for Vice President by former President Donald Trump. (J.D. VANCE/INSTAGRAM)
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Former President Donald Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance to be his running mate, joining him on the Republican presidential ticket in a bid to regain the White House this fall.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaking at a conference. Vance selected to be former President Donald Trump’s runningmate in the 2024 election on the GOP ticket. (COURTESY/WIKIPEDIA COMMONS)
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others,” said Trump on Truth Social. “I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio.”
Vance was chosen as the running mate over Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Vance accepted the nomination as vice president at the Republican National Convention last month in Milwaukee.
In accepting to be Trump’s running mate, he becomes the first Millennial to be named to a a major party ticket at 39-years-old.
In addition, Vance could become the nation’s second Catholic vice president, after Joe Biden, should Trump win election this November. Vance is also only the second GOP veep nominee after Barry Goldwater chose William Miller in 1964.
President Biden has dropped out of the race due to a lackluster performace in the debate against Trump last month.
Vice President Kamala Harris was endorsed by Biden as she will go head-to-head with Trump in the 2024 election. Vance has yet to see whom he will go head-to-head with in a vice presidential debate.
Vance grew up in Jackson in rural Kentucky, and later Middletown, a blue-collar town in Ohio. Vance’s 2016 memoir about his upbringing, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a New York Times bestseller and was later turned into a movie. In it, he also championed working class Americans.
The book also delved into his upbringing in Appalachia and growing up with a mother who struggled with drug addiction. As a result, he was raised by his grandmother Bonnie, whom he called Mamaw. The book’s success prompted The Washington Post to call Vance “the voice of the Rust Belt.”
Trump, in making his veep announcement, emphasized that Vance, on the campaign trail “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.”
After graduating from high school, Vance joined the military and enlisted in the Marines Corps. He later served in Iraq as a public affairs officer. Vance attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated in 2009 with a B.A. in political science and philosophy.
“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?” said Vance in his interview with The Associated Press in 2016.
Vance, who became a successful lawyer and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.
Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri, a lawyer whom he met when the two were students at Yale Law School. Chilukuri, who grew up in California the daughter of Indian immigrants, is Hindu. Chilukuri clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and later Brett Kavanaugh, both practicing Catholics.
Vance and Chilukuri wed in 2014, a year after graduating from the school. The couple held two weddng ceremonies — one of them included being blessed by a Hindu pundit. They have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Religion was not a big part of Vance’s upbringing. His father became a practicing Pentecostal, but only after he left Vance’s mother. While he did go to church with his father, few people around him were pious. Nonetheless, Vance has noted that “the Christian faith stood at the center of our lives.”
Vance grew up in evangelical Christian, but later in life was “not an active participant” in any faith tradition. By the time he went to law school, Vance said he was in atheist.
But things slowly changed as he grew older, Vance recalled, and religion became a much bigger part of his thinking, especially after reading Saint Augustine and French historian and philosopher Rene Girard.
In August 2019, Vance became a Catholic. In doing so, Vance said he “became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true … and Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way.”
“My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching,” said Vance in his interview with The American Conservative in 2019.
Vance is a follower of Catholic integralism, a movement that, experts say, prefers a soft power approach to exerting influence over society.
He was once a “Never Trumper” prior to accepting him as the Republican frontrunner. As a result, he secured Trump’s endorsement and won the Republican primary before winning the open seat in a state that has become increasingly pro-GOP in recent election cycles.
“Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn’t think he was going to be a good president,” said Vance in his interview with Fox News last month. “He was a great president, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.”
Politically, Vance is part of what’s known as the “New Right.” It’s a brand of conservatism that injects with it populism and rejects traditional Republican views. For example, he opposes U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts — like in places such as Ukraine — and has spoken against cuts to Social Security.
The Ohio senator is a staunch opponent of abortion. In fact, he has endorsed policies that would allow the government to encourage people having more children. He even praised Hungarian leader Viktor Orban for encouraging couples to have children.
Vance even initially endorsed a 15-week federal ban on all abortions. However, following the rollback of Roe v. Wade and a series of statewide referendums that failed to ban abortion, Vance has said states should decide the issue. He has also voiced support for abortion pills, something that drew the ire of anti-abortion groups.
“I am pro-life,” said the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party. “I’ve always been pro-life.”
In addition, Vance has proposed a bill that would make sex changes for minors a federal felony and would block taxpayer funds from being used for it.
Vance also supports Trump’s immigration policy and has called for the construction of a border wall along Mexico. In 2023, Vance also proposed a bill that would make English the U.S. official language.
Some of Vance’s beliefs has put him at odds with Catholic teaching and what some in the U.S. church believe.
“At a fundamental level, being in public life is in part a popularity contest,” said Vance about how faith plays in his professional life. “When you are trying to do things that make you liked by as many people as possible, you’re not likely to do things that are consistent with the teachings of the Catholic church. I’m a Christian, and a conservative, and a Republican, so I have definite views about what that means. But you have to be humble and realize that politics are essentially a temporal game.”
Produced in association with Religion Unplugged
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