JD Vance, from ‘hillbilly’ to VP candidate: How an Ohio kid from a broken home rose to be a Republican star

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy JD Vance, the famed Appalachian memoirist turned pugnacious Republican senator, has been named Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee as the former president looks to take back the White House. Hillbilly Elegy – which sought to explain Trump’s rise by dissecting and sharply criticizing the culture that he’d grow up in – made Vance an instant media darling, hailed by many shell-shocked left-wingers as a “Trump whisperer.” Although he was once fiercely anti-Trump, Vance will now be joining his old enemy on the Republican ticket and will be the presumed front-runner for the party’s presidential nominee in 2028. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.” open image in gallery Vance holds a copy of his book Hillbilly Elegy as he meets voters in his hometown after announcing his 2022 Senate run He would often cite the words of a teacher at his old high school, who told him: "They want us to be shepherds to these kids. “If you look at every issue in this country," he said, "every issue, I believe traces, back to this fact: On the one hand, the elites in the ruling class in this country are robbing us blind, and on the other, if you dare complain about it, you are a bad person.” open image in gallery In 2021, Vance began running for the US Senate, with a $10 million donation from his old friend Peter Thiel The Republican primary was crowded with opponents, some of whom raised Vance's long history of anti-Trump statements.