Donald Trump's vice presidential pick J.D. Vance lit up the Republican National Convention Wednesday, July 17, with a speech leaning heavily on his personal story as he sought to connect his turbulent upbringing with the hardships faced by millions of Americans.
He urged voters to "choose a new path" as he accepted his nomination, telling the crowd: "The people who govern this country have failed and failed again." "We're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We'll commit to the working man," Vance said.
In his first speech since being tapped as Trump's vice presidential nominee on Monday, he offered a powerful account of growing up poor in Ohio, with no father at home and a mother hooked on drugs.
The story will be familiar to readers of his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, an account of his Appalachian family and modest beginnings that gave a voice to rural, working-class resentment in left-behind America. "To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this," he said. "I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from."
It was his first real introduction to many tuning in at home and the Trump campaign is banking on the address chiming with blue-collar voters in the swing states key to winning November's election rematch against President Joe Biden.
Vance touched on trade, foreign policy and the drug epidemic – and on Trump's policies for addressing them – but he devoted much of the speech to his own experiences.
He emphasized his background as a former Marine, making him the first veteran on a major party ticket since John McCain ran for president in 2008.
The one-term senator, who will be just 40 on inauguration day, would be the third-youngest vice president in history – and one of the least experienced – if 78-year-old Trump defeats Biden.
His effusive praise of Trump is in marked contrast to the hostility he voiced as he toured television studios in 2016 with a book to sell. Vance was an uncompromising "Never Trumper" at the time of his new boss's election win in 2016, labeling the populist, hard-right tycoon "a moral disaster" and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. He reinvented himself when he entered politics and ultimately won Trump's endorsement in the 2022 Ohio Senate race.
Vance has since grown into cheerleader-in-chief for Trump's anti-immigrant agenda and isolationist foreign policy – notably including opposition to US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Even before his big moment, Vance was a hit with the party faithful in Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum arena. They rewarded him with boisterous applause as he arrived with his wife, Usha, on the opening day Monday to take his place with the Trump family in the front row.
While Vance reinforces Trump's appeal to the hardline base, he offers little chance of broadening the tent to more moderate voters and women. He is further to the right than Trump on some issues including abortion, where he embraces calls for federal legislation.