JD Vance Spotlights Working Class America in Acceptance Speech

MILWAUKEE—Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) formally accepted the Republican Party’s vice presidential nomination July 17, pitching himself as a fighter for the forgotten corners of the American nation.

“I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” the lawyer and venture capitalist, originally from Middletown, Ohio, told the crowd at the Republican National Convention, one day before former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak.

Mr. Vance commended his running mate for his resilience days after an attempt on his life in Pennsylvania.

“President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work!” the freshman senator said.

The vice presidential candidate was raised by his late grandmother, “Mamaw,” in Middletown, Ohio, a woman he described as a bundle of contradictions: a deeply religious woman who “also loved the F word.”

“I’m not kiddin’. She could make a sailor blush,” he said, later telling the story of discovering after his grandmother’s death that she kept 19 loaded handguns around her house. A young Mr. Vance went into his grandmother’s care as his mother was battling with drug addiction. His father had left when he was a toddler.

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The VP hopeful underscored his unconventional story by introducing his mother Beverly, now sober for almost a decade, who was standing beside House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in the audience.

Mr. Vance chronicled his story in the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was later adapted into a Netflix movie, starring Glenn Close as Mamaw and Amy Adams as Beverly.

Mr. Vance was introduced to the stage by his wife Usha, also an attorney, but from a very different background. She grew up the daughter of Indian immigrant scientists in San Diego.

The two met at Yale Law School, which Mr. Vance attended after serving in the Marine Corps and attending college at Ohio State University.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” Mrs. Vance said in her speech. The couple have three children.

Mr. Vance said that America welcomes immigrants but “on our terms.”

Echoing World War II Veteran Bill Pekrul, who also spoke on the evening of July 17, Mr. Vance meditated on the theme of American identity. He began his speech with talk of hope, saying that America is more than an idea.

“It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation,” he said.

Both Mr. Vance and Mr. O’Brien said they hold visions to advance the interests of both unionized and non-unionized workers.

Mr. Vance blamed high housing prices on Wall Street and a growing population of illegal immigrants in the United States.

“Citizens had to compete with people who shouldn’t even be here for precious housing,” he said.

He defended Middle America, including Midwestern states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—all key to the more Rust Belt Republican coalition that first vaulted candidate Trump to the White House.

“There still is so much talent and grit in the American heartland,” Mr. Vance said.

Tough Talk

Mr. Vance, who has cast himself as a foreign policy realist who stands opposed to needless war, sounded Trump-like on the subject of military intervention.

“When we punch, we’re gonna punch hard,” he said, citing President Trump’s actions against ISIS.

His speech was also full of the expected criticisms of President Biden, the Democrats, and their policies—a staple of RNC speeches.

Yet, alongside the tough talk, Mr. Vance signaled a willingness to listen to various perspectives.

“Sometimes I persuade my colleagues, and sometimes, they persuade me,” he said. He also called for Republicans to “debate ideas and come to the best solution.”

Earlier in the day, Democrat and progressive Young Turks commentator Cenk Uygur told The Epoch Times he thinks that Mr. Vance’s populism might not be completely “fake.”

In his speech, Mr. Vance called former President Trump America’s “great persuader,” saying that the 45th president’s persuasion skills have been central to his change of heart about the Republican leader.

When Mr. Trump was first elected in 2016, Mr. Vance—like many others—was a staunch critic of the brash New York real estate developer.

That year, Mr. Vance voted for third-party independent candidate, former CIA officer Evan McMullin.

The Ohio lawmaker previously called the man with whom he is now sharing a ticket “reprehensible.”

He walked back many of those comments in 2021, when he was running for Senate.

“And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak,” Mr. Vance said on Fox News.

In recent months, he has consistently defended the former president.

Biden Campaign Responds

The Biden–Harris campaign has countered Mr. Vance’s talk of representing American workers by saying he would harm them, tying his candidacy to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.”

Former President Trump has distanced himself from the conservative think tank’s policy blueprint—the latest in a series of similar policy outlines for the presidency that the group has been releasing for decades.

“JD Vance is unprepared, unqualified, and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden–Harris campaign, said in a July 17 statement.

While Mr. Vance’s speech dwelled on American workers, particularly those from battleground states in the Midwest, Mr. Tyler said a Trump–Vance ticket will harm “working families and the middle class.”

Ohio Republicans Proud of High-Flying Buckeye

The lawmaker comes from a likely place for a man who could be second in line to the presidency. Mr. Vance’s home state is known as the “cradle of presidents”—it’s the birthplace of seven of them.

The Epoch Times interviewed Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and other members of the Ohio delegation on the convention floor, a day after the former president revealed he had chosen Mr. Vance as his would-be vice president.

Since then, delegate Debbie Lang and her husband, Ohio Sen. George Lang, said the state’s 79 delegates have been filled with pride and excitement.

A resident of Butler County, Ohio, where Mr. Vance grew up, Mr. Lang said, “He is bringing Butler County values to Washington: family, faith, hard work.”

“He is the epitome that, in America, it doesn’t matter where you start, it’s where you finish that counts,” Mr. Lang said.

“He had a terrible, tough, hard upbringing—and he survived,” Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones said.

During Mr. Vance’s speech, the Ohio delegation took up a chant of “Mamaw!”

After the speech, Mr. DeWine told The Epoch Times that the fellow Ohioan’s life story would reach men and women in battleground states, especially where manufacturing has declined.

“I think that his appeal transcends politics,” the governor said.