J.D. Vance’s moment

MILWAUKEE — Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance in his RNC speech played to the working class, put foreign allies on notice and projected an image of former President Donald Trump as an icon who sacrificed for the nation.

In his debut as Trump’s running mate, Vance vowed to protect American workers from foreign competition and stressed that allies across the world will “share in the burden of securing world peace.”

“No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer,” he said, according to prepared remarks.

Vance, as many other Republicans have across the first three days of the convention, portrayed Trump as a martyr after his right ear was pierced by a would-be assassin’s bullet during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. The shooting left one person dead and two others wounded.

“Look at the photo of him defiant — fist in the air. When Donald J. Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field — all of America stood up with him,” Vance said. “He called for national unity, for calm. He remembered the victims of the terrible attack, especially the brave Corey Comperatore, who gave his life to protect his family. And then President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work.”

Vance also recounted his journey from poverty to Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee, sharing pieces of his hardscrabble upbringing as he works to help position the GOP ticket as better champions for working class families than President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Vance’s remarks served as a culmination of his yearslong transition from self-described “Never Trump” conservative to MAGA stalwart, a political journey in which the ambitious and articulate former venture capitalist harnessed populism and promoted isolationism to propel his rise through a changing GOP .

On Wednesday, Vance sought to establish himself as a reinforcer of Trump’s values, an approach that follows just 18 months of serving as a MAGA loyalist in the Senate — and before that, working to earn Trump’s endorsement in a crowded Republican primary in his Ohio Senate race.

In Vance, Trump is elevating a firebrand who shares his pugilistic tendencies, is popular with the MAGA base and who, Trump believes, can resonate with working class voters concentrated in the Rust Belt. With Trump outperforming Biden for months in polls of swing states, operatives of both parties have acknowledged the number of competitive battlegrounds has shrunk — and the campaigns will likely spend significant time in the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The 39-year-old Marine veteran began building his national profile eight years ago with the publication of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” a by-the-bootstraps tale of his own life growing up in poverty in rural Kentucky and western Ohio — a stark contrast to Trump’s wealthy upbringing in New York. His graduation from Yale Law School led to work with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), clerkships and a stint as a venture capitalist before winning his Ohio Senate seat in 2022.

“Some people tell me I’ve lived the American Dream, and they are right,” Vance plans to say. “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.”

As a new senator, Vance helped organize Trump’s February 2023 visit to East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment and chemical spill wreaked havoc on the town. The event happened just days after Vance had endorsed Trump — and Trump delivering aid supplies to and visiting with the rural town’s residents offered a preview of the direction his third presidential campaign would take. And Trump himself was impressed with how Vance responded to the situation, helping boost the case for Vance as running mate later on.