JD Vance hammers battleground state roots as Trump's VP choice at RNC

MILWAUKEE — JD Vance made a formal introduction to American voters on Thursday night in accepting the nomination for vice president — paying homage to his humble upbringing and vowing he would serve as a vice president “who never forgets where he came from.”

The Ohio senator, selected in part because of his appeal to voters in battleground states, mentioned Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio frequently in a nearly 40-minute address on night three of the Republican National Convention.

Vance offered up poignant moments, including introducing the crowd to his mother, Beverly Aikins, whom he wrote about in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” He noted Aikins will celebrate 10 years of sobriety in January 2025 — and promised to celebrate it in the White House.

“If President Trump’s OK with it," Vance said with a laugh. And he said he owed his success to "Mamaw," his "tough as nails" grandmother who helped him through a tough childhood.

Vance, 39, played up his youth as the first millennial vice presidential candidate, noting “Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington longer than I’ve been alive.” He accused the president of being a “champion of every single policy position to make America weaker and more poor.”

“President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful. We’re done catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man,” Vance said.

Most speakers this week focused on unity, but Donald Trump Jr. turned up the rhetoric, blaming Democrats and their “allies in the media,” for dividing the nation.

“Remember build back better? Instead we got broke, bumbling Biden,” Trump Jr. said.

Trump Jr. called Vance a “friend” — drawing a contrast to their upbringing as “a kid from Appalachia and a kid from Trump Tower in Manhattan.”

“We grew up worlds apart, yet now we’re both fighting side by side to save the country we love,” Trump Jr. said. “And by the way, JD Vance is going to make one hell of a vice president.”

Earlier, Trump Jr. handed the microphone to the presidential nominee’s teenage granddaughter Kai Madison Trump, who said the patriarch of the family calls her in the middle of school days “to ask how my golf game is going” and gives her candy and soda when her parents won’t.

Madison Trump’s depiction of her grandfather is a side the public never saw during his 2016 presidential campaign.

She also recounted the weekend assassination attempt on Trump and said he “has been through hell and is still standing.”

Trump Jr. said “we came millimeters away from one of the darkest moments in American history.”

"What was my father’s instinct as his life was on the line? Not to cower, not to surrender, but to show for all the world to see that the next president has the heart of a lion,” he said. “When he stood up with blood on his face and the flag at his back, the world saw a spirit that could never be broken.”

Vance’s speech came on a night of sharp attacks on President Joe Biden, with one segment featuring tearful family members of service members killed in Afghanistan.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been sending migrants to Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., since 2022, centered his address on illegal immigrants, imploring the crowd to chant, “Send them back.”

“And those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our borders,” Abbott said to applause.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said the first Trump administration “was like having a beautiful breeze at our backs,” while life under Biden “has been like a gale-force wind in our face.”

In a speech focused on energy policy, Burgum — who had been shortlisted as a potential Trump running mate before Vance was picked — accused Biden of waging “a war on energy” that “hurts every American because the cost of energy is in everything we use or touch every day.”

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Burgum said Trump called him “Mr. Secretary” when he called to inform him he wouldn’t be his running mate.

“At home, Biden is acting like a dictator. Four more years of Joe will usher in an era of Biden runoffs and blackouts,” Burgum said. “Unleashing America’s energy dominance is our path back to prosperity and peace through strength.”

He called Trump “the hardest-working president in American history” — and he said, “he’ll let all of you keep driving your gas-powered cars.”

Earlier, Illinois delegates roundly supported Trump’s running mate selection in anticipation of his prime-time address.

State Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, an at-large delegate for Illinois, said Vance would fire up younger, millennial voters.

“My son, who's 31 years old, thinks that that was the best decision ever made in the history of the United States,” Bryant said. “That is a demographic that we really want to focus on, and I think they're going to love JD Vance.

“I come from the part of Illinois that we know is God's country. And in that part of the country, JD Vance's story resonates loud and clear,” Bryant said of the “Hillbilly Elegy” author.

Fellow at-large delegate state Sen. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, said Vance “is not an establishment politician. He's not part of the D.C. swamp. He's young. He's smart. He's a veteran, and he can articulate an America-first message that will complement what President Trump is trying to do.”

“We have entrenched politicians that won't leave office, and so I think a fresh perspective from people that have created their own success is a positive,” Chesney said. “President Trump didn't have any political experience, and JD Vance has limited political experience, but I think that's the shot in the arm America needs."