Who is JD Vance, Trump's vice presidential running mate in the 2024 election?

Senator from Ohio once identified as a 'never Trump' Republican

Senator JD Vance is introduced as Donald Trump's running mate at the Republican National Convention. EPA

Donald Trump kicked off this week's Republican National Convention with a major announcement: JD Vance, the junior Ohio senator who has aligned himself with the populist right, will be his vice presidential running mate for the November 5 election.

The announcement caps Mr Vance's journey from anti-Trump Republican to fierce advocate of the Make America Great Again, or Maga, movement.

How did JD Vance gain notoriety?

Ohio elected James David Vance, 39, a venture capitalist and law school graduate, into office in the 2022 midterm elections.

Mr Vance's platform was partly based on his best-selling book about his childhood, Hillbilly Elegy, which is also a Netflix film.

US media treated Mr Vance as the default voice for a disillusioned white working class after Mr Trump's surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“I’m a never-Trump guy, I never liked him,” Mr Vance said during an October 2016 interview, calling the former president a “terrible candidate”.

According to reports, in texts to a former roommate, Mr Vance asked whether Mr Trump was more of “a cynical [expletive] like Nixon” or “America’s Hitler”.

But as he moved into politics, Mr Vance cosied up to far-right “culture warriors” such as representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, eventually joining the Maga movement.

That has included a loyalty to some of Mr Trump's most controversial positions, like suggesting the former president should purge civil servants from the federal government if re-elected, a tenet of the far-right “Project 2025" platform.

What are his views on the Middle East?

Mr Vance, a former marine and veteran of the Iraq War, has criticised Washington's regional posture in opposition to many of his party's more hawkish leadership.

“America is not good at micromanaging wars in the Middle East,” he said in a recent interview with CNN.

“That's been a bipartisan failure. By the way, it's one of the reasons why I think Donald Trump was a good foreign policy president – he departed from that wisdom.”

He also has acknowledged on the Senate floor the plight of Chaldeans in Iraq: “Before we invaded, there were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq.

“Now, nearly every single one of those historical Christian communities is gone. That is the fruit of American labour in Iraq: a regional ally of Iran and the eradication and decimation of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.”

The senator has been a fierce advocate for Israel in its war against Gaza, saying that Washington should “let them prosecute this war the way they see fit”.

He has also advocated expanding the Abraham Accords, saying that “there is no way that we can do that unless the Israelis finished the job with Hamas”.

Despite that advocacy, Mr Vance was among the senators to hold up the passage of billions of dollars in funding when Congress attempted to lump together monies for both Israel and Ukraine, advocating against “endless funding” for Kyiv.

What has he done in the Senate?

Mr Vance has served on committees related to banking, commerce, economics and ageing since joining the Senate in January 2023.

He has been described by right-wing conservatives like Heritage Foundation president Kevin Robert as a leading voice for conservatives and “American culture writ large”.

Importantly, he has said that he would not have certified the 2020 election results immediately if he had been the vice president at that time.

While he was campaigning for the Senate, Mr Vance signalled support for a national 15-week abortion ban, before later softening that stance once Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed a 2023 abortion rights amendment.

Mr Vance has also demonstrated a capacity to promote bipartisan legislation in the Senate.

Along with Sherrod Brown, the senior Ohio senator and a Democrat, he co-sponsored a railway safety bill following a disastrous train derailment and ensuing environmental crisis in the village of East Palestine.

In the aftermath of this weekend's assassination attempt against Mr Trump, he was among the first to give a partisan and polarising response, blaming President Joe Biden and the Democrats.