Who is Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance?

By Taliyah Cavanaugh and Emma Haughey

James David Vance has served as a senator of Ohio since Jan. 3, 2023. On July 15, 2024, former president Donald Trump appointed Vance to be the Republican Party’s Vice President Nominee. In his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance talks about his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio with his grandmother and a single mother who was a drug addict. Vance served four years in the United States Marine Corps as a military journalist, stating at the 2024 Republican National Convention that he enlisted after the September 11th terrorist attacks. In 2006, he was deployed to Iraq as a journalist and did not experience any physical combat. After serving as a military journalist, Vance pursued his education at The Ohio State University and Yale Law School earning a law degree. 

Vance and Democratic Vice Presidental Nominee Tim Walz have disclosed their gun ownership. Vance himself stated in a debate with his Senate opponent, former Ohio Representative Tim Ryan, “I’m a big pro-Second Amendment guy and I know a lot of people who will strongly, stridently defend the Second Amendment.” Before being sworn into the Senate, Vance said he would have voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which includes solutions to address mass school shootings and funding to improve the mental health of Americans that President Biden signed in 2022. In the 2024 Vice Presidental debate, Vance brought up that the increase in school shootings is due to poor care of mental health. He believes with an increase in depression and anxiety, there will be an increase in violence. There needs to be treatment for the root cause of poor mental health. A potential solution given by Vance is to increase the security of schools, make sure door locks work, and find resource officers. 

“The idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys. It just doesn’t fit with recent experience. So we’ve got to make our schools safer,” Vance stated.

For his first few years in politics, Vance agreed with Trump’s abortion stance: it should be chosen by the states. However, when he ran for Senator, Vance supported Senator Lindsey Graham’s abortion bill. This bill makes the procedure illegal after fifteen weeks, with exceptions for incest, rape, and the life of the mother. Most recently, Vance has said there should not be an exception for incest and rape, only an exception if the life of the mother is at risk. He calls himself a “pro-family” person, believing there should be affordable housing and support for fertility treatments. In the 2024 VP debate, Vance reinstated the long-time belief of both him and Trump: the states should decide if abortion is legal or not, and that there will not be a federal abortion ban.

In his Vice Presidential acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Vance focused on his upbringing and how he and Trump would change America. 

“I heard some young family members observe that their parent’s generation, the baby boomers, could afford to buy a home when they first entered the workforce. But I don’t know this person observed if I’ll ever be able to afford a home,” Vance stated. 

He stresses how much the cost of living had gone up for the average American, as well as how he and Trump are aiming to create an improved economy with more job opportunities. They aim to do this by ending the use of imported labor, giving more citizens jobs, as well as buying more of energy from the American people instead of foreign countries. He believes that America under the Biden-Harris Administration has increased living costs. Vance says that the cost of living is a result of so many failures from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Both Trump and Vance share similar opinions on what should be done to deal with immigration during the next term and want to bring more jobs to the middle/low class and create a greater economy. 

During his initial campaign for senator of Ohio, immigration was one of Vance’s biggest arguments. In the Ohio U.S. Senate Debate, Vance argued that immigration through the southern border has become even bigger and more dangerous than ever. 

“I think you deserve a country with a border and leadership who don’t call you a racist for thinking you should deserve a country with a border,” Vance said. 

Throughout his time as Senator, he shared his growing concerns for immigration and sponsored many bills to secure the border and prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving shelter and resources. A couple of these were Bill S2983, which would prevent schools from providing shelter to ‘illegal aliens’, and Bill S.2824 which would strengthen border security. During the Republican National Convention, Vance shared his plans with Donald Trump on how they want to deal with immigration if elected. Vance prompted, 

“You know what Donald Trump and I want to do? We want to go to war with the Mexican drug cartels. We want to close down the American southern border. We want to reinstitute deportation, and we want to stop the insanity at the southern border.” 

In the 2024 VP debate, Vance stated his belief that the then-Trump border policy helped the ongoing issue of immigration. Due to the Biden-Harris administration, he believes illegal immigrants have brought fentanyl to this country and are taking housing and jobs away from Americans. 

“You’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes. The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’ open border,” Vance said.  

His plan is focused on deportation. If a wall is built and deportations are in place, the issue of immigrants undercutting the wages of American workers will decrease. 

“And then I think you make it harder for illegal aliens to undercut the wages of American workers. A lot of people will go home if they can’t work for less than minimum wage in our own country, and by the way, that will be really good for our workers who just want to earn a fair wage for doing a good day’s work.” Vance weighs in,

“This lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages. And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn’t even be here for precious housing,” Vance said. 

With only a few years in politics and a book turned film, Vance has the opportunity to become the next Vice President of the United States alongside Donald J. Trump and give a new face to the Republican party, after serving a single year as a Senator of Ohio.