JD Vance set to make his first speech as Trump’s VP pick at the RNC

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Donald Trump ’s running mate JD Vance will introduce himself to a national audience Wednesday night as he addresses the Republican National Convention.

The Ohio senator’s headlining address will be his first speech as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. In fact, this year’s gathering also is the first RNC that Vance has attended, according to a Trump campaign source who was not authorized to speak publicly. A relative political unknown, Vance rapidly morphed in recent years from a severe critic of Trump to an aggressive defender.

The 39-year-old 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 a major party ticket, he joins the race when questions about the age of the men at the top — 78-year-old Trump and 81-year-old President Joe Biden — have been high on the list of voters’ concerns.

Vance is expected to lean into his biography as someone who grew up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, but went on to the highest levels of US politics. It’s a story meant to connect with voters in middle America and shed light on 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.

An Ivy League graduate and a businessman, Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy ” explored his blue-collar roots and 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 advisor 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.

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 Vance 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.

Trump, as the presidential nominee, is expected to speak Thursday, the convention’s final night. It will be his first speaking event since he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Beyond Vance’s prime-time speech, the Republican Party intends to focus Wednesday on a theme of American global strength. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., will speak Thursday, as well as 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. Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, is also slated to speak Thursday.

Republicans contend that the country has become a “global laughingstock” under Biden’s watch and are expected to make a case Wednesday hitting 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.