The upcoming election between J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan for the vacant Ohio U.S. Senate seat is critical for both parties, as Senate control will likely be decided by a few contested races. Things are heating up as the candidates trade insults during debates and chuck footballs while calling the opposition’s policies “bullsh*t” during non-stop television advertising.
The Republican candidate, J.D. Vance, is anything but ordinary. A political outsider and self-proclaimed “hillbilly,” Vance leveraged his Yale Law School degree and New York Times best-selling autobiography Hillbilly Elegy to burst onto the political scene at 38 years old. Vance is a testament to how an Ivy League education can help propel individuals from underprivileged backgrounds to prominence.
In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance tells the story of his rough upbringing by his drug-abusing mother and compassionate hillbilly grandmother. After serving in the Marines, Vance used his GI Bill rights to attend Ohio State and later Yale Law School. Vance expresses that Yale taught him how to be successful among the nation’s elite and advanced his career in ways that probably would not have been accessible otherwise. Vance is truly an example of how Ivy League institutions can advance the lives of those born into America’s working class and provide them with the skills and network to be forces of positive change.
The addition of another federal legislator who graduated from one of the nation’s top academic institutions and had no prior elected office experience would be nothing new in American politics. For example, both Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, alumna of Boston University who waited tables, and Ted Cruz ‘92, had not held elected office prior to serving in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively. Both were also the first hispanic Americans to represent their constituents. And who can forget how a prominent Ivy League businessman with no prior political experience became the nation’s 45th President? Although their graduates do not make up a majority of Congress, the country’s top colleges serve as springboards for people of all different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds to enter politics in unconventional ways.
Vance survived a contested Republican primary campaigning as an outsider and a man of the people. Despite his platform and credentials, he only pulled ahead after receiving President Trump’s endorsement. Of the U.S. Senate candidates that Trump endorsed during the 2022 election cycle, all won their primaries. Although he is out of the White House, Trump’s pull within the GOP remains strong, and Vance has benefitted from it.
Vance’s remaining competition, the Democrat Tim Ryan, is nothing out of the ordinary. Ryan made a name for himself as a career politician and is a powerful force within the Ohio Democratic Party. This election will measure the pulse of the American people as they decide between the status quo career politician Tim Ryan and the outspoken and political outsider J.D. Vance.
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, two things can be learned from the rapid rise of J.D. Vance: the potential for Ivy Leagues to give a voice to the nation’s working class, and the command that former President Trump retains over the GOP. Although this election is the start of J.D. Vance’s political career, it will most likely not be the end.
The above is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
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