MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump ’s running mate JD Vance will introduce himself to a national audience Wednesday night as he addresses the Republican National Convention.
The Ohio senator’s headlining address will be his first speech as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. In fact, this year's gathering also is the first RNC that Vance has attended, according to a Trump campaign source who was not authorized to speak publicly. A relative political unknown, Vance rapidly morphed in recent years from a severe critic of Trump to an aggressive defender.
The 39-year-old is positioned to become a potential leader of the former president’s political movement, which has reshaped the Republican Party and broken longtime political norms. The first millennial to join a major party ticket, he joins the race when questions about the age of the men at the top — 78-year-old Trump and 81-year-old President Joe Biden — have been high on the list of voters’ concerns.
Vance is expected to lean into his biography as someone who grew up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, but went on to the highest levels of US politics. It's a story meant to connect with voters in middle America and shed light on how Vance's upbringing shaped his positions on issues such as immigration, inflation and drugs, according to a person familiar with the speech who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Vance is an Ivy League graduate and a businessman, but his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy ” explores his blue-collar roots. It made him a national name when it was published in 2016. The book is now seen as a window into some of the cultural forces that propelled Trump to the White House that year.
Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster and a senior advisor to his campaign, said Wednesday that Vance will help in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where the senator’s blue collar roots and populist views are popular.
“His story is a compelling story,” Fabrizio said while speaking at an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and The Cook Political Report.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday billed Trump's running mate pick as part of a choice to continue transforming the Republican Party and the nation rather than picking someone conventional to “consolidate” Republicans.
That cuts against some of the talk of party unity that has dominated the convention’s first two days. Or, perhaps more accurately, it reflects that the definition of Republican unity in 2024 is to accept Trump’s vision and imprint on the party.
Channeling Trump, Gingrich told Iowa Republicans, "He had time to think it through, and his answer is, ‘No, people aren’t for me so I can compromise. People are for me so we can get things done. ... And I need somebody who believes in what we’re doing. And I’m not going to reach out to someone who isn’t us.’”
Still, most Americans — and Republicans — don’t know much about Vance. According to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted before Trump selected the freshman senator as his vice presidential choice, 6 in 10 Americans don’t know enough about Vance to form an opinion. About 2 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of him, and 22% view him negatively. Among Republicans, 61% don’t know enough to have an opinion of Vance. About one-quarter have a positive view of him, and roughly 1 in 10 have a negative view.
Vance at a fundraiser in Milwaukee on Wednesday quipped that he’s told Trump he’s “very excited about this evening” and doesn’t plan to foul it up, but that it’s too late for Trump to change his mind.
He praised the former president for calling for calm and national unity after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“The media keeps on saying they want somebody to tone down the temperature. Well, Donald Trump got shot and he toned down the temperature. That’s what a real leader does,” Vance said.
Trump, as the presidential nominee, is expected to speak Thursday, the convention's final night. He completed a walkthrough of the convention hall in preparation on Wednesday afternoon. It will be Trump's first speaking event since he was injured in Saturday's shooting.
Beyond Vance’s prime-time speech, the Republican Party intends to focus Wednesday on a theme of American global strength. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Vance's wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, will speak Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the program. So will family members of service members killed during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and of someone taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, the person said.
Republicans contend that the country has become a “global laughingstock” under Biden’s watch and are expected to make a case Wednesday hitting on their theme to “Make America Strong Once Again.” That’s expected to include Trump’s “America First” foreign policy that redefined relationships with some allies and adversaries.
Democrats have sharply criticized Trump — and Vance — for their positions, including questioning U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion.
In a video released Wednesday by Biden's reelection campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed Vance as someone Trump "knew would be a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda.”
“Make no mistake: JD Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country,” Harris says in the video.
Vance was a harsh critic of Trump at the time he was first elected, referring to him in interviews as “noxious” and someone who “is leading the white working class to a very dark place.” He even once referred to him as “America’s Hitler.”
He began warming to Trump over the years, especially as he sought in 2022 to run for the U.S. Senate. Vance won Trump’s endorsement, which helped him secure the party’s nomination for the Ohio Senate seat.
Vance has become one of Trump’s most aggressive defenders as the former president has sought the office a third time, sparring with journalists, campaigning on his behalf and appearing with the candidate at his trial in New York.
