J.D. Vance is the 50th Vice President of the United States, President Donald Trump’s vice president, and potentially the future of the president’s long-running populist “Make America Great Again” movement.
Born and raised by his maternal grandparents – whose surname he later adopted – James David Bowman, a 40-year-old former senator and father of three, grew up in a steel manufacturing town in Ohio and, after graduating high school Joined the US Marines.
He completed a six-month tour of Iraq in 2005 in the role of a non-combat military journalist.
After leaving the Marines, he graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He later switched from law to technology investing in California, where he started his own venture capital firm.
At Yale he also met his wife, Usha Chilukuri.
Vance will replace Kamala Harris in the role of second-in-command. Harris ran as the Democratic Party’s nominee against Trump in the November presidential election.
role of vice president
In 1963, John F. The role of the vice presidency has become more important since Kennedy’s assassination, resulting in the death of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One just hours after the shooting.
Such public dominance in the national and global eyes has rarely happened before.
If the President is unable to perform his duties due to “death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office”, the U.S. Constitution outlines the role of the Vice President.
The Vice President may also assume the top post if he and the Cabinet majority agree that the President is unfit for duty.
The Constitution designates the VP as President of the Senate, casting a tiebreaking vote if necessary.
Recent presidents have used their VP picks to build bridges with targeted communities. Trump’s first running mate, Mike Pence, helped him connect with the conservative evangelical wing of the Republican Party, while Joe Biden’s choice of Harris in 2020 was criticized for comparing her age to youth and her role as first lady of color and Asian-American. Seen in. On the deputy’s chair.
Future President?
Constitutional limits mean Donald Trump is unable to run for president again in 2028, and while heavy hitters like governors and senators will run for the Republican nomination, Vance has the advantage of remaining in power as VP.
He is supported by several key players within the Republican Party and the MAGA movement, including Trump’s son Donald Jr. and Silicon Valley billionaires such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sachs.
While Trump will dominate the headlines as president for the next four years, Vance’s stances on key policy issues like abortion, immigration and foreign policy will be closely watched — and how his stances shape the Republican Party’s post-Trump era. can give.
‘Never Trumper’ turns into MAGA senator
Vance came to public attention in May 2016 with the publication of his acclaimed “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”
The bestseller reflected Vance’s upbringing and was set in the declining manufacturing region known as the Rust Belt, just months before Trump came to power after winning by narrow margins in the region’s states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2016. Considered a window into people’s lives.
Those states left Trump in 2020, then came back to him in 2024.
Unlike the Rust Belt, Vance’s support for its president has also declined.
In a 2016 interview on NPR, Vance said he “can’t stomach Trump” and would consider voting for Hillary Clinton, but also said Trump’s phenomenon was buoyed by support from white working-class voters. , who are “not necessarily economically disadvantaged” but in some ways they feel very culturally isolated and are very pessimistic about the future. This is one of the biggest predictors of whether someone will support Donald Trump.
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel was among those who praised the book. the new York Times It was reported in July that Thiel – a longtime mentor of Vance and one of the first high-profile Silicon Valley figures to endorse Trump in 2016 – brokered an initial meeting between the former president and his future VP in 2021 .
Vance later regained his status as the “Never Trump Guy” when he successfully ran in the 2022 Republican primary to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate.
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
This article was originally published on November 6, 2024, and was updated on January 20, 2025, after J.D. Vance became Vice President of the United States.
