JD Vance, from Middletown to the vice presidency in under a decade
The author of Hillbilly Elegy served two years as Ohio's junior senator before becoming vice president in January 2025.
Ten years ago JD Vance was a venture capitalist with a memoir on the way. Today he is vice president of the United States, the first Ohioan in that office since Charles Dawes left it in 1929.
Vance, a Republican, won Ohio’s open Senate seat in 2022 and served barely two years before Donald Trump chose him as his running mate in July 2024. He resigned from the Senate in January 2025, shortly before taking the oath as vice president.
Roots in southwest Ohio
Vance grew up in Middletown, a steel town between Cincinnati and Dayton, and spent part of his childhood with his grandparents, whose roots were in eastern Kentucky. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and served in Iraq as a military journalist, then graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School.
His 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy, described his family’s struggles with poverty and addiction and became a bestseller in a year when many readers were trying to understand Trump’s appeal in places like Ohio. It was later adapted into a film.
A short Senate career
In the 2022 Senate race, Vance beat Democrat Tim Ryan by about six points to succeed Republican Rob Portman. In the Senate, he worked with Democrats on some rail safety legislation after the February 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, a bill that drew attention in rail towns across Ohio, including Bellevue. Our story on the Bellevue yard explains why rail policy is local news here.
His Senate seat went to Jon Husted by appointment. We covered Husted’s appointment and the 2026 special election that will decide who keeps it.
The vice president’s job
As vice president, Vance presides over the Senate and casts tie-breaking votes. The White House has used him as a public advocate for the administration’s trade and manufacturing policies, often in Midwestern states. His official page is on the White House website.
For Ohio readers, Vance’s rise is part of a larger shift: a state that once picked presidents by narrow margins is now reliably Republican in federal races, and Ohioans hold some of the most visible jobs in national politics. More on the people behind that shift is in People & Profiles.