Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance are joined on stage by members of their family during the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024.J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press
Ohio Senator J.D. Vance formally accepted the Republican nomination for vice-president on Wednesday night, using the biggest speech of his political career, and his first public address as Donald Trump’s running mate, to promise change to America’s working class.
Mr. Vance, at 39 the first millennial to join a major American party’s presidential ticket, used his 30-minute speech on day three of the Republican National Convention to introduce himself on the world stage, telling his story of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity and likening it to the challenges facing today’s blue-collar worker.
Born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, Mr. Vance said he was brought up by a grandmother he called Mamaw, as his mother grappled with addiction. He served in the Marine Corps during the Iraq war, graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School and spent several years working in venture capital. His 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, gained him prominence. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 and sworn into office the following January.
His working-class community had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington, he told a rapt audience – a situation he blamed in part on free trade agreements such as NAFTA. President Joe Biden, he said, had over the course of his career “sent countless good jobs to Mexico” and given China a “sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good, American middle-class jobs.”
Americans are now paying more for groceries, gas and rent, and their dreams are shattered, he told the crowd. Mr. Trump, he said, represents the last, best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.
“I pledge to every American, I will give you everything I have – to serve you, and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family and our country will be possible once again,” he said to chants and cheers.
He praised Mr. Trump as a successful businessman who didn’t need politics, “but the country needed him.” After Saturday’s attempted assassination, Mr. Trump was defiant, with his fist in the air, Mr. Vance said.
“And what did he call for us to do for our country? To fight. To fight for America,” he said. “Even in his most perilous moment we were on his mind. His instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater.”
From the VIP box, Mr. Trump smiled.
Mr. Vance was introduced by his wife, Usha Vance, a fellow Yale Law graduate and lawyer who described her husband as the most interesting person she knows. Ms. Vance spent a year clerking for Brett Kavanaugh, whom Mr. Trump would later nominate to the Supreme Court in 2018, and a year clerking for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance hugging his mother Beverly Vance during the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024.J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press
Before Mr. Vance took the stage as the headliner at the end of the night, the convention showcased the Republican gift for political stagecraft. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality who is now engaged to Mr. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., gave a furious speech. Later there was a lengthy and emotional tribute to Gold Star families who had lost American service members. A speech from Mr. Trump’s teenage granddaughter Kai highlighted the former president’s family life.
When Mr. Vance walked out on stage to the twang of Merle Haggard’s America First, the crowd leapt to their feet to greet him. They never sat back down throughout his lengthy speech.
He introduced himself as being from the state of Ohio, and the Ohio delegation off to one side began chanting “O-H-I-O.” Mr. Vance joined them briefly from the stage, before joking that they needed to give some love to Michigan, too.
The crowd appeared to adore his stories about his grandmother, who he said “loved the F-word” and once threatened to run a troublemaker over with her car if her grandson didn’t stop hanging around with him. They launched into chants of “Mamaw!” after the latter story, and “J.D.’s Mom!” when he introduced his mother, approaching 10 years sober, in the audience.
Mr. Vance has previously said he didn’t vote for Mr. Trump in 2016, described himself as a “Never Trump guy” in an interview with Charlie Rose that year and called Mr. Trump “an idiot” on Twitter. In a 2016 Atlantic magazine op-ed, he described Mr. Trump as “cultural heroin” for white working-class voters and, in a private Facebook message that was later made public by its recipient, wondered whether Mr. Trump was “America’s Hitler.”
Mr. Vance’s protectionist rhetoric is bound to unsettle Canadian businesses that rely upon cross-border trade. Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., told The Globe and Mail on Wednesday that it is the role of the Canadian government to defend and advance Canadian interests with whoever Americans decide to put in the Oval Office. The fact that Ohio has a robust trading relationship with Canada – exporting more than US$21-billion in 2023 – means Mr. Vance understands the value of the Canada-U.S. economic relationship, she said.
“He’s obviously someone who has policies that don’t really align with our government in a number of ways – and don’t really align with the values of Canadians, in some ways,” she said. “So those are issues I suppose to navigate if they become relevant to advancing and defending Canadian interests.”
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Mr. Vance and Vice-President Kamala Harris have been in discussions about a debate, but have not agreed on terms. On Wednesday, Newsweek reported that Ms. Harris had accepted potential dates and times for a debate hosted by CBS News, while Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes issued a statement saying the campaign couldn’t lock in a date because it didn’t yet know who the Democratic nominee would be. He was referring to the Democratic Party’s continuing internal crisis over whether Mr. Biden should remain its presidential candidate. If Mr. Biden were to drop out, Ms. Harris could replace him at the top of the ticket.
In a 45-second video posted Wednesday before Mr. Vance’s speech, Ms. Harris called the former president’s pick of the Ohio senator “a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda,” citing as examples Mr. Vance’s support for abortion restrictions and rejection of the 2020 presidential election results. Mr. Trump has said he opposes the idea of a federal abortion ban, though he has taken credit for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending decades of federal protections for abortion rights.
With a report from Shannon Proudfoot