JD Vance
JD Vance has been Vice-President of the United States since January 2025, and reached the office eight years after publishing a memoir describing himself as a never-Trump guy. Born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio in 1984, he was raised largely by his grandmother amid his mother's addiction and a succession of stepfathers, and took the surname Vance from his grandparents. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after school and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent, then took a degree at Ohio State and a law degree at Yale, where he was mentored by Amy Chua. Hillbilly Elegy, published in 2016, described Appalachian and Rust Belt decline through his own family, and was read widely as an explanation of Trump's appeal. Critics argued it attributed structural poverty to cultural failings. He worked in venture capital in San Francisco, including at Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital, and founded Narya Capital in Ohio with Thiel's backing. He had called Trump reprehensible and privately compared him to Hitler in a 2016 message. He reversed the position publicly, won Thiel's financial support and Trump's endorsement, and took an Ohio Senate seat in 2022. In the Senate he opposed further Ukraine funding, worked with Democrats on rail safety after the East Palestine derailment, and pushed to break up large banks after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. Trump chose him in July 2024 as the first millennial on a national ticket. As vice-president he has been an unusually prominent ideological voice, and his February 2025 speech at the Munich Security Conference, attacking European governments over free speech and migration, was received as a rupture in transatlantic relations.
- Lived: 1984 CE – ?
- Nationality: American
- Roles: vice_president, senator
