James David Vance is an American author, venture capitalist, politician, lawyer, and former United States Marine serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he is the party's nominee for vice president in the 2024 election. He is the first vice-presidential candidate to have served in the Marine Corps, as well as the first millennial.
Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance served in the Marine Corps and attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013. He came to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which describes his upbringing in the Rust Belt, poverty, drug addiction, and Appalachian culture. It became a New York Times bestseller and was later made into a film. It attracted significant press attention during the 2016 United States presidential election. Vance defeated Democratic nominee Tim Ryan in the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio. Initially opposed to his candidacy in the 2016 election, he has become a strong supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election, and he was officially nominated at the Republican National Convention on July 15.
During his time in the Senate, Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, national conservative, and a right-wing populist. He has cited Curtis Yarvin, Rod Dreher, Patrick Deneen, René Girard, and Yoram Hazony as influences on his political and religious beliefs. In the past, he said he might support a 15-week abortion ban, believes in exceptions for rape, incest, or threats to the health of the mother, and recently stated his position that abortion legislation should be left to the states. He personally opposes same-sex marriage, though he has said he does not want to reopen the debate. He is in favor of banning pornography. Vance has been considered a maverick from Republican orthodoxy on economics, supporting increases for certain taxes on university endowments and corporate mergers, and for the minimum wage, unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy, and has opposed continued American military aid to Ukraine.
