JD Vance has done it again. Born into a poor working class family, he served with the Marines in Iraq and went on to be a successful Yale Law School graduate, chronicling his transformation in the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy. Now, in a second metamorphosis, he has changed from Trump critic to Trump running mate. The two men now sound so alike that a Washington Post opinion column is headlined “Trump picks a VP that’s just like Trump”.
Though the two men sound alike, there are differences. Vance is 39, Trump 78. And that could be one of his attractions. Trump has picked one of the youngest men to run for vice president. Observers say Trump may have chosen the young politician to preserve his brand of populism and nationalism. For Vance sounds just like Trump.
Once a critic
It’s true that Vance started out in politics as a Trump critic, a Never Trumper. “When Trump ran for president in 2016, he was criticized by Vance, already famous then as the Hillbilly Elegy author. “Trump is cultural heroin,” he wrote. “I think that he’s noxious and is leading the White working class to a very dark place.”
But now Senator Vance of Ohio is 100 per cent behind Trump. He has stood by Trump all through the latter’s legal troubles. Like Trump, he has not committed to accepting the results of this year’s election. “If we have a free and fair election, I will accept the results,” he said on CNN in May.
Vance was quick to blame Biden when Trump was injured in the shooting at a rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday (July 13). “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” he wrote on X.
Trump endorsed him in Senate race
Vance owes his Senate seat to Trump. Trump endorsed him in the Republican primary in 2022.
Now consider who else could be Trump’s running mate.
The other leading politicians considered for the job had competed against Trump in Republican presidential primaries: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida ran against him in 2016; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina both ran in the primary this year.
Vance, on the other hand, has never directly run against Trump. The New York Times says his career shows how devotion to Trump has practically become a precondition in Republican politics.
Vance had been drawing closer to Trump ever since he began his run for the Senate in 2021. His friend, the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, brokered a meeting between him and Trump where attention was drawn to the similarity between their views.
A friend of Donald Trump Jr
Vance also became a close friend of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, who lobbied for him to be the running mate.
Two days before being selected as the running mate, Vance visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He was flown on the real estate titan Steve Witkoff’s G6 Gulfstream jet. Trump picked him after speaking earlier in the week with two other candidates: Senator Rubio and Governor Burgum.
Vance and his advisors had to convince Trump that he could raise money for the campaign and defend him on TV. They also had to overcome opposition from major Republican donors and Rupert Murdoch-affiliated news outlets, said Politico.
Opponents and backers
Many of the party’s mainstream donors regarded Vance as an anti-establishment outsider who differed with them on foreign policy and trade. So Vance, a former venture capitalist, used his Silicon Valley connections to organize a major fundraiser for Trump.
Meanwhile, the Murdoch family-owned New York Post and Wall Street Journal published editorials endorsing Governor Burgum for the vice presidency.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and White House counsellor, also opposed Vance.
But Vance overcame the opposition. His backers included Trump Jr. and political commentator Tucker Carlson.
According to some analysts, however, the similarities between Trump and Vance could be a drawback. Presidential candidates usually choose running mates who can expand their support base. President Biden, for example, from the East Coast, chose Kamala Harris, from California. Vance, on the other hand, appeals to the same voters as Trump. It is unclear whether he can attract voters who are not already Trump supporters.