The GOP vice presidential nominee is only a freshman senator, but has years of experience outside the political arena that is likely to boost the Republican ticket in November.
On Monday, former President Donald Trump tapped JD Vance of Ohio to be his running mate. Vance is the New York Times bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy, a Yale Law School graduate, former Marine, and recently elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.
‘I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,’ Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
‘J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance,’ the former president added.
But before building his political career, Vance was a successful venture capitalist. Yahoo Finance reported that Vance’s Silicon Valley contacts first helped him bring investor dollars to his home state of Ohio, and then helped fund his campaign for the Senate and have already helped contribute to the Trump campaign.
After graduating from Yale Law school in 2013, Vance moved to San Francisco, where he worked at Mithril Capital, a firm co-founded by former PayPal CEO and Republican donor Peter Thiel, the outlet reported.
Vance also spent time in his early career near the nation’s capital working for former AOL CEO Steve Case’s venture capital firm, Revolution LLC. There he spearheaded a project to expand capital opportunities to small towns like Middletown, Ohio — where Vance was born, Yahoo notes.
‘J.D. Vance has become a leading voice for people across the country who feel left behind, so he is the perfect person to help us expand Rise Of The Rest,’ Case said in 2017, according to the outlet.
In 2020 Vance launched his own Cincinnati-based fund, reportedly with the backing of, Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt, and Scott Dorsey. Yahoo reports that firm was founded to help redirect big East Coast dollars into investment opportunities in states like Ohio.
Earlier this year, Vance helped to organize a fundraiser for Trump’s campaign with billionaire investor David Sacks. That fundraiser, hosted at Sacks’ home, marked Trump’s first visit to San Francisco in years and resulted in a $12 million boost to Trump’s re-election fund.
In June, Vance spoke to Fox News’ Lawrence Jones, who asked him what a ‘JD Vance economy’ would look like.
‘A lot more manufacturing jobs than we have right now,’ he said. ‘If you look, the economies that really, really thrive, they’ve got a foundation of strong manufacturing. They’re developing their own energy.’