JD Vance is an American politician, lawyer, author, and Marine veteran. He has been serving as the junior U.S. Senator from Ohio since 2023. Vance is a member of the Republican Party, is Donald Trump’s running mate for the 2024 vice presidential election.
Vance served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007, spending six months in Iraq as a combat correspondent. His memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a bestseller and was turned into a movie in 2020.
In the 2022 Senate election, Vance defeated Democrat Tim Ryan. Although he initially opposed Trump in 2016, he later became a strong supporter. In July 2024, Trump chose Vance as his running mate, making him the first Marine veteran nominated for vice president.
Vance holds strongly conservative views on social issues, opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and gun control, and advocates for banning transgender healthcare for minors. However, he diverges from traditional Republican positions on market interventions, taxes, the minimum wage, unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy. 1wikipedia
JD Vance Biography
James David Vance whose birth name is James Donald Bowman was born on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, USA he is 40 years old as of 2024 and he is of Scots-Irish descent. He is a White American who believes in the Christian faith. 2cnn
JD Vance Education
After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003, Vance joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent. After his military service, he attended Ohio State University and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in political science and philosophy in 2009. He then went to Yale Law School and graduated in 2013.
During law school, Vance was encouraged by his professor Amy Chua to write his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which became a bestseller and was adapted into a film in 2020. After law school, he worked for Senator John Cornyn, clerked for Judge David Bunning, and practiced law at Sidley Austin before moving to San Francisco to work as a venture capitalist. 3britannica
JD Vance Parents
JD Vance’s parents Beverly Carol (née Vance) and Donald Ray Bowman, divorced when he was young. After his mother’s third marriage to Bob Hamel, his name was changed to James David Hamel. Later, he took his grandparents’ surname, Vance.
Vance’s childhood was marked by poverty and abuse, with his mother struggling with drug addiction. He and his sister, Lindsey, were primarily raised by their maternal grandparents, James and Bonnie Vance, who had moved to Ohio from Kentucky’s Appalachia. 4imdb
JD Vance’s Wife & Children
JD Vance as a child dreamt of “the American dream with a happy family” and admired Bill Clinton, who had a similar background.
Around 2011, Vance met his wife, Usha Chilukuri, at Yale Law School. He referred to her as “my Yale spirit guide.” They married in 2014 in Kentucky in an interfaith ceremony, with Vance being Christian and Usha being Hindu. They have three children.
Raised in a conservative Protestant family, Vance was not active in any Christian denomination by 2016 but was considering converting to Catholicism. In August 2019, he was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church, choosing Augustine of Hippo as his confirmation saint. He converted because he found Catholicism intellectually fulfilling and influential in shaping his political views.
Vance has expressed that Christian teachings emphasize the dignity and value of his life, which translates into supporting legal protections for the vulnerable and fair wages for workers. He plans to be buried in eastern Kentucky, where his family has been laid to rest for generations. 5wikipedia
JD Vance Career Journey
JD Vance opposes U.S. aid for Ukraine and argues that the administration has no clear plan for Ukraine’s success. He claims Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower or firepower to defend against Russia and that the U.S. can’t provide the necessary support. Vance believes Ukraine and its Western allies should abandon the goal of restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders to progress.
The U.S. and European allies, however, support Ukraine’s sovereignty and believe Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t stop his expansion in Ukraine. Vance has also been active in promoting train safety after a toxic train accident in East Palestine, caused health and environmental issues. In March 2023, he joined five other senators to introduce rail safety legislation to prevent future derailments.
“I am pro-life. I want to save as many babies as possible,” he told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in May. “And sure, I think it’s reasonable to say that late-term abortions should not happen with reasonable exceptions. But I think Trump’s approach here is trying to settle a very tough issue and empower the American people to decide it for themselves.” 6cbsnews
“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors,” he told ABC News in February, “and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there. That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think that’s what we should have done.” 7cbsnews
The committee assigned to JD Vance
- Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
- Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection subcommittee
- Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Subcommittee
- Securities, Insurance, and Investment Subcommittee
- Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
- Communications, Media, and Broadband subcommittee
- Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing subcommittee
- Space and Science subcommittee
- Senate Special Committee on Aging
JD Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was published in 2016 and received significant attention during the 2016 election. It was praised and criticized, with some calling Vance the “voice of the Rust Belt” and others accusing him of sloppy analysis. In 2017, he received an honorary degree from Centre College.
Vance also worked as a CNN contributor and was involved in the film adaptation of his memoir, directed by Ron Howard and released on Netflix in 2020.
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