J.D. Vance
James David JDVance is an American senator and venture capitalist. He is the author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy. July 15, 2024 approved at the convention of the Republican Party of the United States as a candidate for Vice President with Donald Trump.
Brief Biography
JD Vance was born on August 2, 1984. His real name is James Donald Bowman. Vance is the surname of his mother, who at one time struggled with heroin and opioid addiction, abandoned by the father of the guy. Young James was raised by his maternal grandparents.
After graduating from high school, Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in Iraq, where he worked in public relations.
Subsequently, he earned his undergraduate degree from Ohio State University. At that time he also worked for Republican Senator Bob Shuler.
Subsequently attended Yale Law School. It was then, on the advice of his mentor and professor Amy Chua, that he wrote his memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
He was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated with a J.D. in 2013.
After his time at Yale, Vance returned to Ohio, where he founded Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit organization to help fight addiction.
Vance's memoir was published in 2016 and brought him unearned fame.
In 2017, Vance joined the investment firm Revolution LLC. He was tasked with expanding the Rise of the Rest initiative, which focuses on growing investments in underserved regions outside of Silicon Valley and New York's tech bubbles.
In January 2017, Vance began collaborating with CNN.
That same year, famed Hollywood director Ron Howard acquired the screen rights to Vance's memoir. The film starring Gabriel Basso as Vance, Amy Adams as his mother, and Glenn Close as his grandmother was released in limited release on November 11, 2020, and appeared on Netflix on November 24.
As early as early 2018, Vance considered running for the U.S. Senate, but ultimately decided against it.
In July 2021, Vance did decide to try his hand at running for a Senate seat. Although it was his first campaign for public office, he won the Republican primary in May 2022 with 32% of the vote. He later defeated Democratic candidate Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote to become senator.
Vance was sworn into the U.S. Senate on January 3, 2023 as a member of the 118th U.S. Congress. He is the first U.S. Senator from Ohio without prior government experience since astronaut John Glenn took office in 1974.
U.S. Vice Presidential Candidate
On July 15, 2024, Vance was confirmed as vice presidential candidate at the Republican Party convention that endorsed Trump as its presidential nominee.
Interestingly, Vance has recently been an ardent Trump supporter and has often voted in favor of his interests, but this has not always been his position. Back in 2016, he called Trump an "American Hitler" and a "cynical asshole." He publicly changed his stance while running for office in 2021. At the same time, he apologized to Trump on the air of Fox News channel.
What he said about helping Ukraine in the war with Russian Federation
Vance is known for his scandalous statements about Ukraine. He has repeatedly opposed supplying U.S. weapons to Ukrainian soldiers to defend against a Russian full-scale invasion.
Last year, along with 18 other Republicans, he signed a petition to President Joe Biden calling for an end to "unrestricted aid" and threatened to block such packages unless they were tied to a strategy to end the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible.
And in December 2023, ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Washington, Vance demanded that the Biden administration recognize that Ukraine would "eventually cede" some of its territories to Russia.
"We have a food crisis ... we have an energy crisis... It is in America's interest to recognize that Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians, and we need to end the war," he said.
In a column for the NYT, the senator wrote that the more than $60 billion aid package for Ukraine is not the difference between victory and defeat. It was only a fraction of what would be needed to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favor. He "advised" Ukraine to adopt a defense strategy to "preserve military strength and buy time to start negotiations."
"But to do this, we need to recognize: the stated goal of returning to the 1991 borders is a fantasy," Vance wrote in the piece.
Personal life
Vance has been married to former law school classmate, Usha Chilukuri, since 2014. They have three children together.