Who is JD Vance: Hillbilly Elegy writer, Ohio senator and former military journalist, now second in command

From January 20, JD Vance - the 40-year-old junior Ohio senator raised by his grandmother in a childhood marked by poverty and substance abuse - will rise to be a heartbeat away from the US presidency.

Sworn in just minutes before President Donald Trump, Vice-President-elect Vance’s ascension marks an extraordinary rise through US politics for the young former Marine.

Born James Donald Bowman in 1984 in Ohio, Mr Vance was raised by his grandparents - “Mamaw and Papaw” - after his father left when he was a toddler and his mother grappled with addiction. He ultimately adopted his grandparents’ surname, Vance, in 2013.

Mr Vance was raised in the home of some of the US’ poorest counties, the Appalachians, a mountainous area that stretches from the industrial Mid-West to the Deep South, areas slammed by the changing economic and jobs markets and drug addiction.

Enlisting in the Marine Corps at age 19 in 2003, Mr Vance served as a military journalist and was deployed to Iraq for six months in 2005 in a non-combat role.

After attending Ohio State University through a military program, Mr Vance would later pursue law at Yale, where he would meet his now-wife Usha.

Ms Vance, 38, a lawyer who clerked for two Supreme Court Justices, married the Vice-President-elect in 2014, and together the pair have three children, sons Ewan, 7, and Vivek, 4, and a daughter, Mirabel, 2.

During his speech to the Republican National Convention last year, Vance said becoming a father was proudest achievement of his life.

“My most important American dream was becoming a good husband and a good dad,” he said. “I wanted to give my kids the things that I didn’t have when I was growing up.”

It was his authorship of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis in 2016 which propelled him into the national spotlight, with the memoir on The New York Times best seller list in 2016 and 2017.

While some criticised the book’s generalisations, others used it to explain President Trump’s first win, with assertions casts on “hillbilly culture” and the impact on the region, such as welfare and drug dependencies.

The book was later adapted by director Ron Howard into a 2020 movie with Amy Adams and Glenn Close to poor reviews.

With a new national profile, Mr Vance moved home to Ohio musing about a potential bid for political office, joining conservative movements, and ultimately nominating for the US Senate in 2022, and winning the seat comfortably.

A conservative, Mr Vance has been vocal on a number of traditionally right wing issues, including opposition to abortion, same sex marriage and gun control.

Raised as a conservative protestant, Mr Vane converted to Catholicism in 2019 after being encourage by former boss, PayPal founder and Republican benefactor Peter Thiel.

Just a year into his first term in Congress, Mr Vance endorsed Mr Trump for the presidency. As the primaries cemented the former president’s status as Republican nominee, Mr Vance’s name was linked to the running mate role, with some believing South Carolina Senator Tim Scott to be the front-runner.

By June, the shortlist had been whittled down to Mr Vance and Florida Senator Marco Rubio -- who Mr Trump would later make Secretary of State.

Mr Trump formally announced Mr Vance as his running mate just days after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, taking to his social media site to describe his Vice Presidential nominee as “the person best suited to assume the position”.

“Some people tell me I’ve lived the American dream, and of course they’re right. And I’m so grateful for it,” Mr Vance told the Republican National Convention when accepting his nomination.

“I promise you this — I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

But Mr Vance’s journey to the Vice Presidency has not been without challenges, with the campaign resurrecting comments he made about Mr Trump in 2016 where he reportedly called the-then Republican nominee “America’s Hitler” and “unfit for office”. Midway through Mr Trump’s first term, Mr Vance had changed his views.

Reports during the campaign emerged amid poor polling for Mr Vance that some of Mr Trump’s inner circle had proposed changing candidates, as his early performance on the trail raise eyebrows.

Opponents raised prior commentary made by Mr Vance, including about childlessness, saying “we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

Mr Vance later clarified the comments, which drew ridicule online, as being a reference to the Democrats being “anti-family” and “anti-child”, but more quotes emerged, including from a 2020 podcast where he said being childless made people “more sociopathic”.

But as the campaign progressed, and Mr Vance beat expectations and won the the Vice Presidential debate against Democrat Tim Walz, his popularity grew.

On election night, as Mr Trump secured his return to the White House and Mr Vance’s elevation to the second highest office in the US was complete, he summed up the win as “the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”

Now, Mr Vance, the third-youngest vice-president in US history, and the first Millennial to hold the role, will have his place at Mr Trump’s side, where he is set to to take a senior role in pursuing the President’s legislative agenda, and a lead on policy areas such as immigration and the economy.