Ultimately, the 2024 presidential election is not a rematch of the 2020 race for the White House. That year, it was Biden and Harris versus Trump and Pence.

After overwhelming pressure from party leaders, Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic nominee passed the torch to his vice president, Kamala Harris. The Republican ticket is again led by Donald Trump, but his running mate for the third top job in the US is Ohio’s junior senator, JD Vance.

It can be assumed that Mike Pence did not want to serve under the man who sent an angry mob to the US Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and built a gallows for the then-Vice President who oversaw the ceremony. In fact, he challenged Trump to be the GOP standard bearer in 2024.

So, How is it that Vance, a relatively novice politician who has only served in the Senate since January 2023, became #2 on the republican presidential ticket?

JD Vance and how a “hillbilly” from Ohio studied law at Yale University

Vance was born and raised in working-class Middletown, Ohio but through his family he has connections to Eastern Kentucky. In his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, he said that as a child he made frequent visits to his great-grandmother’s home near Jackson in Breathitt County, Kentucky, and spent summers there.

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate enlisted in the US Marine Corp after graduating high school in 2003. He did a six-month tour in Iraq in a non-combat role, working as a military journalist. He achieved the rank of corporal for his time with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.

After Vance left the US Army, he used the GI Bill to attend Ohio State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy, graduating summa cum laude in 2009. The following year he attended Yale Law, where he not only earned a place at the prestigious school, but walked all the way through his first year.

There he began writing the manuscript that would become “Hillbilly Elegy.” After reading “Tiger Mother’s Battle Hymn,” a book written by his first-year contracts teacher Amy Chua, he wrote an essay about growing up with a drug-addicted mother who she told him it could be a book. With her encouragement, he expanded the subject and turned it into a memoir.

She introduced them to her agent and the book was published in 2016. It became a bestseller and was made into a Netflix movie in 2020. It was launched into the limelight.

With his fame, he also acquired a powerful benefactor in the form of Silicon Valley entrepreneur, venture capitalist and political activist Peter Thiel. for whom he had worked in San Francisco. The billionaire gave him a boost when Vance sought Trump’s endorsement in his 2022 Senate bid. It was Don Jr and Eric who pushed their father to now choose the senator to be his running mate on the 2024 ticket.