JD Vance

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, and venture capitalist serving as the 50th vice president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the state of Ohio in the United States Senate from 2023 to 2025.

Vance was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up in an unstable, low-income family. After graduating from Middletown High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2003, and served as a military journalist in public affairs until 2007. He earned a bachelor's degree from Ohio State University and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. After a brief career in corporate law, he worked for Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Mithril Capital.

Vance rose to national prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which received widespread attention as scholars and journalists sought to understand white working-class disaffection after Donald Trump's election. The book spoke to a broader political realignment sweeping post-industrial Appalachia and the Midwest, and was adapted into a film in 2020. He grew up a Protestant, but converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019. Vance was originally critical of Trump's candidacy, but became a strong supporter while running for Senate. He was elected to the Senate in 2022, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan in the general election after winning a crowded Republican primary with Trump's endorsement.

Vance was selected as Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential election and resigned from the Senate before his inauguration as vice president. He became the first Marine Corps veteran, the first Iraq War veteran, and first millennial in U.S. history to serve as vice president. During his tenure as vice president, he has also served as finance chair of the Republican National Committee. He has been described as a national conservative and right-wing populist, aligning himself with the "postliberal" New Right movement.

Vance was born James Donald Bowman on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, the city in which he was also raised. His mother is Beverly Carol Aikins (née Vance), and his father was Donald Ray Bowman (1959–2023); they divorced when he was a toddler. Vance wrote in his book Hillbilly Elegy that he was of Scots-Irish descent. He grew up in an Appalachian American culture, spending summers with relatives in Jackson, Kentucky.

Vance attended Roosevelt Elementary School and Vail Middle School, which were demolished in 2008 and 2012, respectively. He briefly attended West Elkton Elementary School for fourth grade. Vance has written that his childhood was marked by poverty and abuse, and that his mother struggled with drug addiction. She worked as a registered nurse when Vance was a toddler, where she reportedly got addicted to pharmaceutical drugs after one of her co-workers offered her Vicodin for a headache. Soon thereafter, she was fired and lost her nursing license after she got caught stealing morphine. He and his elder sister, Lindsay, were raised primarily by their maternal grandparents, James Lee Vance (1929–1997) and Bonnie Eloise Blanton (1933–2005), whom they called "Papaw" and "Mamaw". In 1990, after he was adopted by his mother's third husband, Bob Hamel, his mother changed his name to James David Hamel to remove his biological father's first name and surname and to use an uncle's first name, David. Vance therefore kept his first name and his nickname, JD. He eventually changed his surname to his mother's maiden name, Vance, in April 2013.

Vance attended Middletown High School from 1999 until he graduated in 2003 with an honors diploma. In 2007, he began studying at Ohio State University, where he graduated with highest honors in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and philosophy. In 2010, Vance entered Yale Law School, where he won a staff position on The Yale Law Journal and worked with a group of its editors who primarily checked citations. Vance's future wife was the journal's executive developmental editor. At Yale, he befriended fellow Ohio native and future Republican politician Vivek Ramaswamy. During his first year, Professor Amy Chua persuaded Vance to begin writing his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

Vance also initiated a rapport with Peter Thiel after attending his 2011 talk at Yale. In 2010–2011, Vance wrote for David Frum's "FrumForum" website under the name J. D. Hamel. Although Hillbilly Elegy says he adopted his grandparents' surname of Vance upon his marriage in 2014, the name change actually occurred in April 2013 (his full name therefore changing to James David Vance), as he was about to graduate from Yale. Vance obtained his Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in May 2013 and was admitted to the bar in Kentucky later that year.

After graduating from high school, Vance enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a private, serving as a combat correspondent (military journalist) with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. During his four years of service, he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 for six months in a non-combat role, writing articles and taking photographs. In December 2005, he was part of a group of Marines that held a roundtable discussion with Vice President Dick Cheney. He attained the rank of corporal, and his decorations include the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. In 2007, Vance left the military and used the G. I. Bill to study at Ohio State.

After graduating from law school, Vance worked for Republican senator John Cornyn. He spent a year as a law clerk for Judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, then worked at the law firm Sidley Austin, beginning a brief career as a corporate lawyer. Having practiced law for slightly under two years, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist. Between 2016 and 2017, he was a principal at Peter Thiel's firm, Mithril Capital.

In June 2016, Harper published Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The memoir recounts the Appalachian culture and socioeconomic problems of Vance's upbringing. Hillbilly Elegy was on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2016 and 2017. The Times listed it among "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win", and Vance was profiled in The Washington Post, which called him "the voice of the Rust Belt". In The New Republic, Sarah Jones criticized Vance as "liberal media's favorite white trash–splainer" and a "false prophet of blue America", calling the book "little more than a list of myths about welfare queens". Hillbilly Elegy's success helped propel Vance into contact with social elites, and he began writing a column for The New York Times. Vance later said that his interactions with social elites from this time, particularly their perceived disdain for "the people he grew up with", helped shape his later views.

Vance worked at a biotech company named Circuit Therapeutics from 2015 to 2017. Its chairman, Frederic Moll, said he hired Vance for his intelligence, legal qualifications, and connection to Thiel. Vance tried to get Mithril Capital to invest in Circuit but Mithril passed. Colin Greenspon, then managing director at Mithril, liked Vance and got him to move to Mithril in 2016. At Mithril, Vance clashed with Mithril's co-founder and managing director Ajay Royan. He decided to leave in 2017. Bloomberg reports he deleted all traces of Mithril from his LinkedIn profile. Vance moved back to Ohio, where he published an op-ed in The New York Times with the headline "Why I'm moving home", in which he complained about "highly educated transplants" in Silicon Valley. In another interview, he said elite tech crowds wielded "political-financial power in combination with a certain condescension". In 2017, Vance joined Revolution LLC, an investment firm founded by Steve Case. Greenspon left Mithril and joined Vance at Revolution in 2018. At Revolution, Vance was tasked with expanding the "Rise of the Rest" initiative, which focuses on growing investments in underserved regions outside Silicon Valley and New York City.

Vance was a CNN contributor from 2017 to 2018.

In 2017, Vance sold the film rights to Hillbilly Elegy to Imagine Entertainment. In April 2017, Ron Howard signed on to direct the film version, which was released in select theaters on November 11, 2020, and later that month on Netflix.

In early 2018, Vance considered running for the U.S. Senate against Sherrod Brown, but did not. In March 2021, Peter Thiel gave $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC created in February to support a potential Vance candidacy. Robert Mercer also gave an undisclosed amount. In April, Vance expressed interest in running for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman. In May, he launched an exploratory committee.

Vance announced his Senate campaign in Ohio on July 1, 2021. On May 3, 2022, he won the Republican primary with 32% of the vote, defeating multiple candidates, including Josh Mandel (24%) and Matt Dolan (23%). On November 8, in the general election, Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote to Ryan's 47%. This vote share was considered a vast underperformance compared to other Ohio Republicans, especially in the coinciding gubernatorial election. Vance had often previously spelled his name with periods after his initials ("J.D.")—including in the publication of Hillbilly Elegy—but after becoming a candidate for office, he removed the periods ("JD").

On January 3, 2023, Vance was sworn into the Senate as a member of the 118th United States Congress. Vance was Ohio's junior senator from January 3, 2023, to January 3, 2025. Data from mid-July 2024 showed that Vance had made 45 Senate speeches and sponsored 57 legislative bills, none of which had passed the Senate. Vance had also co-sponsored 288 bills, of which two passed both the Senate and the House but were vetoed by Biden. He attended Biden's 2023 State of the Union Address.

On March 1, 2023, Vance and Senator Sherrod Brown co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to prevent derailments like the one in East Palestine, but the bill failed due to lack of intra-caucus Republican support. In June 2023, Vance voted against raising the debt ceiling, standing against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and saying it would result in "a reduced military in the face of a rising threat from China".

In July 2023, Vance and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced legislation that would have made gender-affirming care for minors a federal crime, with penalties of up to 12 years in prison. In June 2024, Vance sponsored the Dismantle DEI Act, which would ban federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and funding for agencies, contractors, and organizations receiving federal funds. Vance was not present for any Senate votes during his vice-presidential campaign.

On January 31, 2023, Vance endorsed former president Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries. On July 15, 2024, the first day of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had chosen Vance as his running mate. On July 17, the third day of the convention, Vance accepted the nomination to be Trump's running mate.

Along with Vance, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Florida senator Marco Rubio, and South Carolina senator Tim Scott were finalists to be Trump's running mate. Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, advocated for Vance. Several media and industry figures are said to have lobbied for Vance to be on the ticket, including Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, Tucker Carlson, and Peter Thiel, who first introduced Trump to Vance in 2021. The Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025, privately advocated for Vance. Musk responded to Trump's vice-presidential pick hours after its announcement, saying the ticket "resounds with victory". David Sacks, a prominent GOP donor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, wrote on Twitter: "This is who I want by Trump's side: an American patriot." In 2022, Sacks gave a super PAC supporting Vance's Senate campaign $900,000, and Thiel added $15 million. It was initially reported that Musk would contribute $45 million monthly to the Trump-Vance campaign, but Musk later said he planned to donate "much lower amounts".

On May 15, 2024, Trump attended a $50,000 per head private fundraising dinner with Vance in Cincinnati. Guests included Chris Bortz and Republican fundraiser Nate Morris. Vance appeared at significant conservative political events and in June was described as a potential running mate for Trump. In July, a former friend of Vance's from Yale Law School exposed to the media communications between them and Vance from 2014 to 2017, with the friend alleging that Vance has "changed [his] opinion on literally every imaginable issue that affects everyday Americans" in pursuit of "political power and wealth".

In late July 2024, after President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for reelection and Vice President Kamala Harris became a presidential candidate, Vance said at a private fundraiser that the "bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden ... Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did"; a day later, Vance told the media, "I don't think the political calculus changes at all" with Harris as the Democratic nominee. After criticism of his past remarks and political positions, Vance said in an August 2024 interview that a vice president "doesn't really matter" and that Harris "has been a bad vice president". This came after Trump said that the "vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact". In late August, after Trump's campaign was embroiled in controversy for allegedly bringing cameras into a restricted area of Arlington National Cemetery during Trump's visit there, Vance first said that Harris "can go to hell" because "she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up", and then said "Don't do this fake outrage thing". At the time of his comments, Harris had not publicly discussed the incident.

In August 2024, Vance said that Trump had "said that explicitly that he would" veto a national abortion ban. In September 2024, during his debate with Harris, Trump was asked about Vance's statement about the veto, and responded: "I didn't discuss it with JD ... I think he was speaking for me—but I really didn't."

At noon on January 20, 2025, Vance became the 50th vice president of the United States, sworn into the office by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Before his inauguration, he held a meeting with China's vice president Han Zheng in which they discussed China–United States relations. Vance is also the first Marine Corps veteran to serve as vice president.

Among Vance's first acts as vice president was swearing in Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the first of Trump's cabinet nominees to be approved by the Senate, on January 21. On January 24, he cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. In February 2025, after multiple federal judges issued temporary rulings against various Trump administration actions, Vance wrote, "judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power".

On February 14, 2025, Vance delivered a speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference. In it, he criticized European Union leaders for actions such as annulling Romania's presidential election under claims of foreign interference and using "misinformation" laws to silence political opposition. Vance warned that the US would condition its support for Europe on whether its governments actually uphold free speech, press freedom, and political legitimacy, and criticized European governments for "running in fear of their own voters". His tone and content marked a sharp departure from past US foreign policy rhetoric and prompted strong backlash from European leaders. Several media outlets regarded the speech as a turning point in European Union–United States relations along with Trump's telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Some called it a declaration of "ideological war" and "culture war" against the United States' European allies, and a "wrecking ball" to the decades-long status quo of transatlantic relations.

In a first for a sitting U.S. vice president, in March 2025 Vance visited Greenland, where he said "We can't just ignore the president's desires" for the U.S. to acquire Greenland. He also warned that Greenland faced the "encroachment of powerful countries" China and Russia "as they expand their ambitions", while declaring in a "message to Denmark" that "you have not done a good job". Vance criticized Denmark for having "underinvested in the security architecture" and "people of Greenland". The next month, he lamented that the "globalist economy" had caused the U.S. to "borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture".

In May 2025, Vance and Rubio helped mediate a ceasefire deal between India and Pakistan amid the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict. In February 2026, Vance became the first sitting U.S. vice president to visit Armenia, where he met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to advance a U.S.-brokered multi-billion-dollar civil nuclear energy deal with the goal of decreasing Russia's influence in the region.

Vance has been called a national conservative, right-wing populist, and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right. He has said he was influenced by Catholic social teaching. He has endorsed books by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, and far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.

On social issues, Vance is considered conservative. He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and gun control. He has taken a number of natalist positions. He has repeatedly expressed a belief that childlessness is linked to sociopathy and said that parents should have more voting power than non-parents, but he backtracked from that suggestion in August 2024. He has proposed federal criminalization of gender-affirming care for minors. He supports Israel in the Gaza war. He opposes continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion and prefers a negotiated peace. He has argued that the country's largest and most powerful institutions have united against the right. He has said there is a "need to seize the institutions of the left" and has called for "a de-woke-ification program" even if the courts say it is illegal. He is critical of universities, which he has called "the enemy". Vance is also critical of both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In October 2025, Vance said a much lower rate of legal immigration would be better for the U.S.

In 2016, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling him "America's Hitler" and "reprehensible" and himself a "never Trump guy". In 2021, after he announced his Senate candidacy, Vance publicly announced support for Trump, apologizing for his past criticisms and deleting some of them. That year, Vance advised Trump to fire all civil servants and replace them with Trump supporters. Vance has said that if he had been vice president during the 2020 presidential election, he would not have certified the results. Instead, Vance said that some states Trump lost should have sent pro-Trump electors to Washington so that Congress could decide the election. Vance has dismissed the Watergate scandal and suggested that Richard Nixon was unfairly forced out in 1974, repeatedly comparing Nixon to Trump. Historians have responded that the Watergate tapes provide overwhelming evidence of Nixon's abuses.

Vance has cited the writers Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, Curtis Yarvin, and J. R. R. Tolkien as influences on his beliefs. Peter Thiel, William Julius Wilson, Robert Putnam, David Autor, René Girard, Raj Chetty, Oren Cass, and Yoram Hazony are also said to have shaped his thinking. Dreher was a guest at Vance's baptism.

Vance opposes abortion, and supported the Supreme Court of the United States overturning of Roe v. Wade. In 2022, he said, "I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." In 2024, he said that abortion laws should be set by the states. Vance has called the "right to life" a priority for conservatives.

Vance wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that he was raised in a low-income family by his single mother and grandmother. In 2013, Vance met Usha Chilukuri while both were students at Yale Law School. In June 2014, they married in Kentucky in an interfaith marriage ceremony; she is Hindu and he was a Protestant Christian. In 2019, he converted to Roman Catholicism. The wedding included a Bible reading by Vance's "best friend", Jamil Jivani, and the bride and groom were blessed by a Hindu pandit. Usha clerked for a year for Brett Kavanaugh, at the time an appeals court judge in Washington, then clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts for a year.

JD and Usha Vance have four children. With the birth of the couple's fourth child on July 19, 2026, Vance became the first vice president to have a child while in office since Schuyler Colfax in 1870. In an excerpt from his book Communion published in June 2026 as an op-ed by The Wall Street Journal, Vance wrote that the 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk influenced Usha's decision to have a fourth child. The couple own over 100 acres of land in Kentucky. In 2018, Vance bought a 157-year-old home for $1.4 million in East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati.