MILWAUKEE — Introducing himself to the nation, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance is ready to use his Wednesday night address at the Republican National Convention to share the story of his hardscrabble upbringing and make the case that it’s the GOP ticket that best understands the challenges facing many Americans.
The 39-year-old Ohio senator is a relative political unknown. In his first primetime speech since becoming Trump’s nominee for vice president, he will recount growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, and how he later went on to the highest levels of U.S. politics.
It’s a story meant to connect with voters in middle America and show how Vance’s upbringing shaped his positions on issues such as immigration, inflation and drugs, according to a person familiar with the speech who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Speaking at a fundraiser earlier Wednesday in Milwaukee, Vance also said he will use his headlining address to drive home the call for the former president to be reelected.
“The guy who actually connects with working people in this country is not Fake Scranton Joe, it’s Real President Donald Trump,” Vance said, referencing President Joe Biden.
Vance, who rapidly morphed in recent years from a severe critic of Trump to an aggressive defender, is positioned to become a potential leader of the former president’s political movement, which has reshaped the Republican Party and broken longtime political norms. The first millennial to join the top of a major party ticket, he enters the race when questions about the age of the men at the top — 78-year-old Trump and 81-year-old Biden — have been high on the list of voters’ concerns.
Along with his relative youth, he is new to some of the hallmarks of Republican presidential politics: This year’s gathering is the first RNC that Vance has attended, according to a Trump campaign source who was not authorized to speak publicly.
He joins the ticket as Republican leaders have called for unity after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Yet as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pointed out while addressing Iowa Republicans on Wednesday, Trump choosing Vance was a move toward further transforming the party rather than picking someone conventional to “consolidate” Republicans.
“He had time to think it through, and his answer is, ‘No, people aren’t for me so I can compromise. People are for me so we can get things done,” Gingrich said, “and I need somebody who believes in what we’re doing. And I’m not going to reach out to someone who isn’t us.’”
Trump, who is scheduled to speak Thursday, the convention’s final night, completed a walkthrough of the convention hall in preparation on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday’s speech will Trump’s first since he was injured in Saturday’s shooting.
Vance is an Ivy League graduate and a businessman, but his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy ” explores his blue-collar roots. It made him a national name when it was published in 2016. The book is now seen as a window into some of the cultural forces that propelled Trump to the White House that year.
Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster and a senior adviser to his campaign, said Wednesday that Vance will help in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where the senator’s blue collar roots and populist views are popular.
“His story is a compelling story,” Fabrizio said at an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and The Cook Political Report.
Still, most Americans — and Republicans — don’t know much about Vance. According to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted before Trump selected the freshman senator as his vice presidential choice, 6 in 10 Americans don’t know enough about him to form an opinion. About 2 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of him, and 22% view him negatively. Among Republicans, 61% don’t know enough to have an opinion of Vance. About one-quarter have a positive view of him, and roughly 1 in 10 have a negative view.
His wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, will speak Wednesday night, too, according to a person familiar with the program.
Beyond Vance’s prime-time speech, the Republican Party focused Wednesday on a theme of American global strength. Speakers were to include family members of service members killed during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and of someone taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, the person said.
Republicans contend that the country has become a “global laughingstock” under Biden’s watch and were expected to hit on their theme to “Make America Strong Once Again.” That’s expected to include Trump’s “America First” foreign policy that redefined relationships with some allies and adversaries.
Democrats have sharply criticized Trump — and Vance — for their positions, including their questioning U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion.
In a video released Wednesday by Biden’s reelection campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed Vance as someone Trump “knew would be a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda.”
“Make no mistake: JD Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country,” Harris says in a video.
Vance was a harsh critic of Trump at the time he was first elected to the Senate, referring to him in interviews as “noxious” and someone who “is leading the white working class to a very dark place.” He even once referred to him as “America’s Hitler.”
He began warming to Trump over the years, especially as he sought in 2022 to run for the U.S. Senate. Vance won Trump’s endorsement, which helped him secure the party’s nomination for the Ohio Senate seat.
Vance has become one of Trump’s most aggressive defenders as the former president has sought the office a third time, sparring with journalists, campaigning on his behalf and appearing with the candidate at his trial in New York.
This story has been updated to correct the dates of scheduled speeches from Thursday to Wednesday.
Associated Press writers Ali Swenson, Jill Colvin and Bill Barrow in Milwaukee and Will Weissert and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.