JD Vance’s Remarkable Journey to the White House
From Memoir to Politics JD Vance’s rise to the White House is nothing short of extraordinary. The 40-year-old from Middletown, Ohio, gained national attention with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.
After serving in the military and a brief career as a venture capitalist, Vance now holds the position of Vice President of the United States. Despite his political success, the year began with a health scare, leading to surgery in January.
A Difficult Childhood Vance’s early years were far from easy. He and his half-sister, Lindsay Vance, grew up in Middletown, Ohio, with a mother struggling with addiction. Their parents divorced when Vance was a child, and his mother’s violent tendencies worsened over time.
In an NPR interview, Vance recalled a terrifying moment when his mother threatened to crash their car, endangering both him and his sister.
“[I] hopped in the back seat to hide from her. And this got her really angry. And she stopped the car and pulled over and, I think, was going to start hitting me. And so I ran,” Vance said.
Eventually, a lawsuit freed the siblings, and their grandparents adopted them. Though life remained challenging, they had each other for support.
Finding His Path When Lindsay moved out to start her own family, Vance struggled to find direction. He experimented with drugs and fell in with the wrong crowd. His grandmother, determined to set him straight, intervened with a threat he never forgot.
“She actually told me in a very menacing voice, ‘Look, JD, I’ll give you a choice. You can either stop hanging out with these kids, or I’ll run them over with my car. And trust me, no one will ever find out,’” he told NPR.
Determined to change, Vance graduated from Middletown High School in 2003 and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He spent four years serving as a combat correspondent in Iraq, writing articles and taking photographs under the name James Hamel, his stepfather’s surname.
Military Service and Leadership Potential Though politics wasn’t on his mind at the time, his Marine colleagues saw leadership potential in him. Retired Maj. Shawn Haney, his officer in charge at Cherry Point, North Carolina, believed Vance was destined for public office.
“We all knew one day he would run for office,” Haney told CNN. “He always did a great job where he was, but always looked forward to the next thing.”
Vance detailed his military experiences in Hillbilly Elegy, expressing gratitude for the discipline and lessons he learned.
“When I joined the Marine Corps, I did so in part because I wasn’t ready for adulthood,” he wrote. “I didn’t know how to balance a checkbook, much less how to complete the financial aid forms for college.”
Excelling in Public Affairs After Iraq, Vance returned to Cherry Point as a media relations officer—a role usually reserved for senior Marines. The position honed his public speaking skills and reinforced his ability to handle high-pressure situations.
Haney, impressed by his performance, assigned him to media relations even though he was only a corporal.
“That was normally an officer’s job, and he was a corporal at the time,” she noted.
His skills became evident during Fleet Week in New York City. When a journalist asked for his thoughts, Vance delivered an eloquent, Churchill-like response on the spot. A fellow Marine recalled, “At that moment, it dawned on me how cut out for public affairs he was. He was a natural.”
From Venture Capital to Politics Using the GI Bill, Vance attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009 with a degree in political science and philosophy. He then earned a law degree from Yale in 2013.
His memoir’s success propelled him into the spotlight, leading him to connect with investors like AOL co-founder Steve Chase. Chase hired him at his firm, Revolution, where Vance focused on Midwestern startups. In 2017, he launched Cincinnati-based Narya Ventures but soon turned to politics.
In 2018, Vance considered running for the U.S. Senate but declined for family reasons. However, when Senator Rob Portman decided not to seek reelection in 2021, Vance entered the race. He won the Republican primary in May 2022 and defeated Tim Ryan in the general election, becoming Ohio’s junior senator in January 2023.
A Complicated Relationship with Trump Donald Trump endorsed Vance, but their relationship wasn’t always smooth. In 2017, messages surfaced where Vance had called Trump a “moral disaster.” In a 2016 interview, he also expressed skepticism about Trump’s intentions.
“I cannot stand Trump because I think he’s a fraud,” he once told a radio host. “I don’t think he actually cares about folks. He just recognized a hole in the conversation.”
Despite these past criticisms, Vance and Trump later found common ground. Today, Vance serves as Vice President of the United States, proving that his journey—from a troubled childhood to the White House—was anything but ordinary.
