(Daily Mail) J.D. Vance hit primetime on Wednesday evening, describing his rise from a forgotten corner of Ohio and promising to fight for working people all across the country if he and Donald Trump are elected in November.
His story was met with ecstatic cheers from the Republican faithful in Milwaukee, who see him as the sort of youthful figure who can secure Trump’s MAGA legacy.
But it was his mother Bev who stole the show. Her addiction, abuse and chaotic lifestyle were described in his bestselling memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’
‘Our movement is about single moms like mine, who struggled with money and addiction, but never gave up,’ he told the Republican National Convention.
‘I’m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober.’
Donald Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance wowed the Republican convention on Wednesday evening, using his life story to speak to a forgotten America
The crowd erupted when her face appeared on the Jumbotron, chanting: ‘J.D.’s mom, J.D.’s mom.’
Seated in Trump’s family box, she leaned across to Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and said tearfully: ‘That’s my boy.’
It is the sort of story that the Trump campaign believes will connect with voters in working class America.
Yet even Vance admits he was not always Trump’s biggest fan. He did not vote for him in 2016 and regularly appeared in public warning against what he saw as the danger of the Republican president and even privately comparing him to Hitler.
That is all forgotten in Trump’s Republican Party of 2024, where the repentant Never Trumper might even help draw in doubters.
‘I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts,’ he told the Republican National Convention.
‘But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.’
The 39-year-old first term senator is on a meteoric path, from hardscrabble upbringing amid the ravages of his mother’s addiction via the Marines to Yale Law School and the Senate.
But he is little known outside political circles despite a movie version of his memoir starring Glenn Close.
The crowd chanted ‘J.D.’s mom’ when Vance paid tribute to his mother Bev and described his pride at how she had been sober for the past 10 years
Vance embraced his wife Usha after she introduced him
Wednesday was his chance to reach a bigger audience as he begins his work to win over blue-collar states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania that voted Biden in 2020.
‘Some people tell me I’ve lived the American Dream, and they are right,’ he said
‘But the American Dream that always counted most was not starting a business or becoming a senator or even being here with you fine people, it was becoming a good husband and a good dad, and of giving my family the things I never had as a kid.’
His address blamed ‘career politicians’ like Biden for trade policies that upended families like his.
‘President Trump’s vision is simple—we won’t cater to Wall Street, we’ll commit to the working man,’ he said. ‘We won’t import foreign labor, we’ll fight for American citizens.’
Nowhere on the floor was there more excitement than among the Ohio delegation. Where other delegates got up and strolled around the floor, popped out for snacks or the bathroom, the Buckeye seats were full two hours before Vance appeared.
Delegate Mike Gondinaki said the hype over Vance was real.
‘He represents the present and the future,’ he said. J.D. Vance is the future of our party. What Barack Obama was to the Democrats.
The campaign released images of his name being added to a Trump plane and some of his Senate staff were transferred over to the presidential election effort.
Vance’s tough upbringing, the son of an addict mother with an endless string of partners in southern Ohio, is a message that will connect with a broad swath of heartland America.
Usha Vance appeared on stage to introduce her husband to the convention. ‘It’s hard to imagine a more powerful example of the American dream,’ she said
Former President Donald Trump arrives for the third day of the Republican convention
