After high school, Vance joined the Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and was deployed to the Iraq War for six months in 2005.

[9] He and his sister, Lindsey, were raised primarily by their maternal grandparents, James and Bonnie Vance (née Blanton), whom they called "Papaw" and "Mamaw".

[12] During his four years of service, Vance was deployed to the Iraq War in 2005 for six months in a non-combat role, writing articles and taking photographs.

The Times listed it among "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win",[31] and Vance was profiled in The Washington Post, which called him "the voice of the Rust Belt".

[32] In The New Republic, Sarah Jones criticized Vance as "liberal media's favorite white trash–splainer" and a "false prophet of blue America", calling the book "little more than a list of myths about welfare queens".

[33] Hillbilly Elegy's success helped propel Vance into contact with social elites, and he began writing a column for The New York Times.

[35] Vance was tasked with expanding the "Rise of the Rest" initiative, which focuses on growing investments in underserved regions outside Silicon Valley and New York City.

[43] With Peter Thiel and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, Vance invested in Rumble, a Canadian online video platform popular with the political right.

[47] According to a 2017 archived capture of the nonprofit's website, the members of the advisory board were Keith Humphreys, Jamil Jivani, Yuval Levin, and Sally Satel.

Ryan pointed to reports that the organization paid a Vance political adviser and conducted public opinion polling, while its efforts to address addiction failed.

[55][56][b] Our Ohio Renewal's tax filings showed that in its first year, it spent more (over $63,000) on "management services" provided by its executive director Jai Chabria, who also served as Vance's top political adviser, than it did on programs to fight opioid abuse.

[62][63][49] From March 2017 to April 2021, Vance served on the board of directors of the startup AppHarvest, which carried out indoor vertical farming in Kentucky.

AppHarvest was also one of Narya Capital's first publicly announced investments; touting the company's commitment to bring good jobs with health care benefits to an economically depressed area of Appalachia, Vance publicly advocated for AppHarvest, in February 2021 telling the media that it was "not just a good investment opportunity, it's a great business that's making a big difference in the world".

Citing interviews with former AppHarvest workers, CNN reported that some of them believed "Vance and other board members should have recognized and responded to warning signs that company officials were misleading the public and their own investors.

[65] Workers complained to authorities about "brutal" working conditions stemming from high temperatures in company greenhouses coupled with allegedly heavy production demands, lack of safety gear, and few rest and water breaks.

[64][65] Vance never held an operational role at the company, and his vice-presidential campaign said he had been unaware of the complaints about working conditions and that the decision to hire migrants was made after he resigned from the board.

[67] In March 2021, Peter Thiel gave $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC created in February to support a potential Vance candidacy.

[77] On March 1, Vance and Senator Sherrod Brown cosponsored bipartisan legislation to prevent derailments like the one in East Palestine,[78][79] but the bill failed due to lack of intra-caucus Republican support.

[80][81][82] In June 2023, Vance voted against raising the debt ceiling, standing against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023[83] and saying it would result in "a reduced military in the face of a rising threat from China".

[84] In July 2023, Vance and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced legislation that would have made gender-affirming care for minors a federal crime, with penalties of up to 12 years in prison.

[91][92] On July 15, 2024, the first day of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had chosen Vance as his running mate.

David Sacks, a prominent GOP donor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, wrote on Twitter: "This is who I want by Trump's side: an American patriot."

"[114][115] In late September 2024, Vance spoke at a western Pennsylvania town hall event organized by Lance Wallnau, who has promoted election denialism and called Kamala Harris a "demon".

CNN found multiple examples of Vance making similarly disparaging remarks about childless people, primarily Democratic officials.

[129][130] In September 2024, Vance made allegations of "Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.

[147] A September 2024 Gallup poll showed that 41% of registered voters rated Vance as either an "excellent" or a "pretty good" choice versus 46% for Walz.

[155] Among Vance's first acts as vice president was swearing in Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the first of Trump's cabinet nominees to be approved by Congress, on January 21.

[159] German-American political scientist Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook said the first third of Vance's speech was "peppered with conspiracy theories, misinformation and an invitation to take these distortions seriously".

[160] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The 50th vice president of the United States, JD Vance, has been described as national conservative,[161][162] right-wing populist,[161][163] and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan.

He has repeatedly expressed his belief that childlessness is linked to sociopathy, and advocated that parents have more voting power than non-parents,[178][179] but in August 2024, he backtracked from that suggestion.