The connections that catapulted JD Vance from Trump critic to running-mate

The journey from the foothills of Appalachia to the halls of Congress proved one thing: JD Vance understands how to accumulate power in American politics.

Less than two years after being elected to Congress for the first time, he has officially climbed further than anyone expected for such a short time — and could end up being springboarded to even greater heights.

Let’s call Monday’s announcement what it is: a massive coup by the freshest of freshman senators. The 39-year-old Vance would already raise eyebrows as a running-mate pick, considering he is one of the Senate’s youngest members. Add in the fact that he’s also in the most recent class of Republican senators to join the chamber and, on top of that, currently serving in his very first elected position, and you have something really different.

Those who know him, having run against him, are well aware of how it happened. For all his political inexperience, Vance remains a shrewd, calculating operative who was able to mold himself into a near-perfect champion for Trumpworld, despite his own long history of derision and criticism aimed at the former president before he jumped into the race. By 2022, the man who had called Trump an “idiot” and called his movement damaging to the country had completed his evolution into an effective and media-savvy cheerleader for Donald Trump.

‘’You remember in our Senate race, Trump got up onstage and insulted him. And he got back up there and smiled and shook his hand,” observed Tim Ryan, the Democrat who ran against Vance for the Senate seat Vance won in Ohio in 2022.

Ryan, who spoke to The Independent days before Vance would be selected as Trump’s running mate, described his former foe as calculating and ambitious to the point