The former president named JD Vance, the senator of Ohio, to be his running mate and vice-president if he returns to the White House

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Born James David Bowman in Middletown, Ohio in 1984, Vance comes from a white, working class family mostly of Scottish-Irish decent. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the once-booming Appalachian coal country that is now one of the country’s poorest areas.

Vance joined the Marines for four years and served in Iraq before going to Ohio State University, where he received degrees in political science and philosophy.

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From there, he attended Yale Law School, and then wrote a successful memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that some reviewers described as offering a window into a conservative white working class that is often overlooked.

In 2017, Vance moved back to Ohio from California, where he had been working in biotech, and set up his own venture capital operation with support from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a sometime libertarian and rare Republican in Silicon Valley.

In early 2021, Thiel gave $10m (£8m) to a committee seeking to recruit Vance as a Senate candidate.

Once Vance joined the race, he abruptly changed his tone regarding Trump, apologising for previously calling him “reprehensible” and even repeating the president’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

With an endorsement from Trump, he clinched the Senate seat and has since become an influential voice in Washington.

Last updated on November 15th, 2024 at 10:47 am