JD Vance Introduces Himself as Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential Candidate, Direct Appeal to His Rust Belt Home

MILWAUKEE — J.D. Vance introduced himself to a national audience Wednesday after being selected as Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate, sharing stories about his troubled childhood and making the case that his party best understands the challenges facing struggling Americans.

Speaking to a packed house at the Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator cast himself as a champion for the rights of the forgotten working class, speaking directly to the Rust Belt voters who helped propel Trump’s surprising victory in 2016 and voicing their anger and frustration.

“In small towns like mine in Ohio, or our neighbors in Pennsylvania, Michigan, states all across our country, jobs were being sent overseas, kids were being sent to war,” he said.

“To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and to all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and all across our country, I make this promise,” he said. “I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

” READ MORE: JD Vance’s youth and background could help Trump in Pennsylvania.

The 39-year-old Ohio senator is a relative political unknown, having served in the Senate for less than two years. He has quickly transformed in recent years from a fierce critic of the former president to an aggressive defender, and is now positioned to become the party’s next leader and torchbearer for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political movement.

” READ MORE: Live News: The Latest from the Republican National Convention

The first millennial to join the top of the primary ticket, Vance enters the race as questions about the ages of the men at the top — Trump, 78, and President Joe Biden, 81 — have risen high on voters’ lists of concerns. He also joins Trump after the assassination attempt on the former president — in which Trump came within inches of death or grave injury — underscored the importance of a potential successor.

But Trump’s decision to pick Vance was not about choosing his vice presidential running mate or the next vice president, said Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who introduced the senator at a fundraiser earlier Wednesday.

“Donald Trump has chosen in JD Vance a man who is the future of the country, the future of the Republican Party, the future of the America First movement,” he said.

” READ MORE: Assassination attempt on Donald Trump halts as he reveals vice presidential candidate on first day of GOP convention

Vance told his story and introduced his family

In his speech, Vance told the story of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio with a drug-addicted mother and an absent father. He later joined the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School and rose to the highest echelons of American politics — the embodiment of the American dream he said is now in short supply.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed I would be standing here today,” he said.

Vance rose to prominence after the publication of his bestselling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which tells the story of his working-class roots. The book has become required reading for those who want to understand the cultural forces that swept Trump into the White House this year. Vance spent years as a Trump critic, lashing out at the former president with insults before changing his tune.

Vance, who has never attended a Republican convention before, let alone spoken at one, spent much of his speech praising Trump and criticizing Biden, using his youth to create a contrast with the 81-year-old president.

” READ MORE: House Democrats Abruptly Drop Letter Asking DNC to Delay Biden Nomination After Party Postponed to August

Vance says he was in the fourth grade when “a career politician named Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that moved countless good American manufacturing jobs to Mexico.”

“Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for as long as I’ve been alive,” he added. “For half a century, he’s championed every policy initiative that has made America weaker and poorer.”

The crowd in the convention hall greeted Vance warmly, erupting in chants of “Mamaw!” for his grandmother and “JD’s Mom!” after he introduced his mother, a former drug addict who has been sober for 10 years.

” READ MORE: Kensington Beach Founder Speaks at RNC. Was He Right?

Vance was introduced Wednesday night by his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, who spoke about the stark differences in the way she and her husband grew up — she was a middle-class immigrant from San Diego, and he came from a low-income Appalachian background. She called him a “meat-and-potatoes guy” who respected her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for his mother.

Trump, again wearing a bandage on his injured ear, watched Vance’s speech from the family box and smiled frequently.

” READ MORE: Just before the attempted assassination, Trump was ahead of Biden in an extremely close poll in Pennsylvania.

Most Americans — and Republicans — didn’t know much about Vance before Wednesday night. According to modern survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted before Trump chose the rookie senator as his running mate, found that 6 in 10 Americans don’t know enough about him to form an opinion. That includes 61% of Republicans.

Democrats have attacked Vance for his past support for a national abortion ban, his criticism of U.S. involvement in Ukraine and his willingness to blame Democrats for the attempted assassination of Trump. But the junior senator has avoided such controversy in remarks that have been devoid of the conservative attacks on meat that convention audiences typically expect.

Biden’s campaign responded with a withering statement calling Vance “unprepared, incompetent and ready to do anything Donald Trump demands.”

“Tonight, JD Vance, the poster boy for Project 2025, took center stage. But it is working families and the middle class who will suffer if he is allowed to remain there,” said Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director.

” READ MORE: Here’s Why a Pennsylvania Trump Ally and a Trump Skeptic Are Not Attending the RNC

Trump’s fresh-out-of-jail assistant electrifies crowd

Convention organizers had been emphasizing the theme of unity even before Trump survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday. Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol, officials said, will not be present on the stage.

But that changed when former White House official Peter Navarro was greeted with a standing ovation hours after being released from a Miami prison, where he served four months for ignoring a subpoena issued by a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of the former president.

“If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful. They will come for you,” he said in a fiery speech, comparing his legal troubles to those faced by Trump, who was convicted of 34 felonies in his bribery trial earlier this year.

Also spotted on the convention floor were Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, and Roger Stone, who were convicted in the investigation into Russia’s election interference. Trump pardoned both Manafort and Stone.

Families blame Biden for loss of loved ones

In addition to Vance’s prime-time speech, the Republican Party focused Wednesday on the theme of American global power.

IN a particularly strong momentRelatives of soldiers who died during Biden’s disastrous troop withdrawal from Afghanistan appeared on stage, holding photos of their loved ones.

Christy Shamblin, whose daughter-in-law, Marine Staff Sergeant Nicole Gee, was killed in the attack, spoke of the six hours she said Trump spent with her family in Bedminster, New Jersey, and “he spoke to us in a way that made us feel understood.”

“Donald Trump carried that burden for several hours with me. And for the first time since Nicole died, I felt like I wasn’t alone in my grief,” she said.

Herman Lopez, whose son, Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez, was among those killed, read aloud the names of all 13 U.S. service members who died in the Aug. 26, 2021, attack.

The event was also attended by the parents of Omer Neutra, one of eight Americans still held hostage in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 Hamas attack.

His parents, Ronen and Orna, said Trump called them after their son, an Israeli soldier, was captured and offered support. As they spoke, the crowd chanted, “Bring them home!”