Vice presidential picks rarely make or break a presidential campaign, but the selection usually sends a message for how the presidential candidate plans to govern. With President Joe Biden at 81 years of age and former President Donald Trump at 78, coupled with the assassination attempt on Trump, the No. 2 spot seems to carry additional weight during this election cycle.
Trump’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance, who hails from Middletown, Ohio, has been widely rumored for weeks, along with a handful of other possible picks. But in selecting Vance as his running mate, Trump is making it clear that he wants to solidify his populist, America First agenda for decades to come.
Compelling story
The 39-year-old Republican has a compelling personal story, which was made famous in the 2016 bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy.” In the book, he detailed his struggles growing up with a mother who battled drug addiction. He was raised largely by his grandmother.
Vance climbed out of poverty after joining the Marines, earning degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School and working as a corporate lawyer turned venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. He was not originally a fan of Trump, at times describing him as “dangerous” and “reprehensible.”
But when he returned to Ohio to launch his Senate campaign in 2021, he later apologized for those types of remarks, noting that he was “wrong about the guy” and described Trump as a “good president.” Trump eventually endorsed him in Ohio’s GOP primary. When he was elected, Vance fully embraced Trump’s “America First” agenda and became one of his staunchest defenders on Capitol Hill.
He’s a proponent of tariffs and protecting United States industries, but he’s only been in the Senate since January 2023 and has very little record on agriculture issues.
In an interview with CBS News in May, he said, “I certainly agree that we need to apply some broad-based tariffs, especially on goods coming in from China, and not just solar panels and EV stuff. What you end up doing is you end up making more stuff in America, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio and in Michigan.” Trump is proposing an across-the-board tariff on all imported products.
Positive ag reaction
Key ag and officials have good things to say thus far about Vance.
“It’s a new generation of the conservative populism of Donald Trump, and that has served America’s farmers very, very well,” Jeff Kauffman, the Iowa Republican Party chairman and a seventh-generation livestock producer, said of Vance in an interview with Agri-Pulse during the Republican National Convention.
Duane Stateler, an Ohio hog producer who also attended the Republican National Convention, has been getting Vance up to speed on his industry’s issues. Stateler, who’s president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council, told Agri-Pulse that he has advised Vance on Proposition 12, the California initiative that regulates sow housing for pork sold in the state.
“Once he gets into the groove, he’s been a strong supporter of our industry,” Stateler said of Vance.
‘He gets it’
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., and the ranking member of Senate Ag, John Boozman of Arkansas, both praised Vance in separate interviews with Agri-Pulse staff.
“He understands rural America,” Thompson said of Vance, citing the senator’s best-selling book.
While Vance has little record on farm policy, Thompson noted, “He’s obviously from an agriculture state, and that’s important.”
Boozman suggested a Trump-Vance administration would help pass a farm bill that increases commodity price supports.
“I think that President Trump understands how important rural America is, and they’ve been solidly behind him. So, I hope that we get a farm bill done before the end of this year. On the other hand, if it does push into next year, I think that J.D. will be a help in actually getting our farm bill policy up from 2018 policy to the current day,” Boozman said.
Boozman also noted Vance’s roots in Ohio, a “very big ag state.” He added, “I will sit down in the very near future and talk to him specifically about some of the ag policy that we’re trying to get done.”
Editor’s note: Sara Wyant is publisher of Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc., www.Agri-Pulse.com.
