J.D. Vance Has One Older Half-Sister

Republican vice president nominee J.D. Vance has used his tumultuous childhood as a key talking point in his political campaigns. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which was adapted into a feature film on Netflix, detailed the senator's relationship with his parents as he grew up in Middletown, Ohio.

Sen. Vance was primarily raised by his grandparents, who he lovingly refers to as Papaw and Mamaw. But the senator also had a sister he grew up alongside. Here's what we know about her.

J.D. Vance has a half-sister who openly adores him.

Sen. Vance's sister, Lindsay, was born five years before him, and her father is Bev Vance's first husband. In public interviews, as Sen. Vance has risen in notoriety, Lindsay has defended her brother repeatedly. In an interview with Dayton Daily News following the release of Sen. Vance's memoir, she told the outlet, “The kid has never done wrong in my eyes. J.D. has a part of my soul that nobody will ever have and I’ll protect him until the day I die."

As she's five years older than Sen. Vance, Lindsay left home while he was just a teenager, leaving to start her own family. She's currently married with three children. Despite her vocal support of him, she's also admitted publicly to feeling guilty for leaving him alone with their mother, especially as she battled addiction.

“I just laid in bed at night pulling apart and reading it and I would just cry,” she told Megyn Kelly in an interview. “I just felt so sorry for those kids and why I didn’t see more of him. ... I should have been able to do more.”

Despite the guilt she feels, though, it seems the two have a good relationship, as Sen. Vance has publicly stated "I just don’t think that Lindsay should feel guilty at all about it.”

"She had found her way and I was looking for my way out,” he told Megyn.