In just two years, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has gone from winning a Senate seat in 2022 to securing former President Trump’s running mate last week.
His rapid rise has provided few clues for lobbyists trying to decipher the junior senator’s policy positions and given him few footholds to get a foothold into the possibility of a second Trump administration.
A former White House official told The Hill that the decision to nominate Vance as vice president “would be a shocking choice for the Washington establishment, who were hoping for a more traditional vice presidential nominee.”
Given Vance’s relatively short tenure in Congress, his former staffers aren’t treading en masse down the well-trodden path from Capitol Hill to K Street, a term that refers to Washington’s influence industry that stretches far beyond its namesake avenue.
Vance also garnered attention for his early work in Congress, including co-sponsoring legislation with progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Recovery of compensation It will be introduced in May by executives of the failed bank. invoice The bill includes provisions that would ban public health officials from working with pharmaceutical, biologics or medical device companies for eight years after they leave office.
He also called Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who is blocking the merger, “one of the few people in the Biden administration who I think is doing a pretty good job.” Co-Sponsor The Credit Card Competition Act is a bipartisan bill that financial institutions have spent millions of dollars fighting.
“This is not a business-as-usual type of arrangement,” Lauren Monroe, president of lobbying giant BGR Group, told The Hill.
“We are telling our clients that traditional alliances and partisan issue divisions are being disrupted and that they need to become more agile and refine their political and policy engagement to meet changing political priorities,” Monroe added.
Trump’s decision to select Vance “shocked” many CEOs, he said. SemaphoresBut the decision came as no surprise to some lobbyists.
“The Bush-era conventional wisdom has long since become irrelevant. Many Washington-based Republican lobbyists and consultants are uncomfortable with the party’s efforts to appeal to working-class voters, and I think that’s partly why Nikki Haley beat Trump in the Washington primary,” Sam Geduldig, co-CEO of CGCN Group and a former staffer for the House Financial Services Committee and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio), told The Hill.
David French, chief lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, praised Vance as a “disruptor” willing to take a fresh look at lingering issues such as the Credit Card Competition Act, a bill aimed at breaking up the “Visa-Mastercard duopoly” by requiring large financial institutions to offer two or more network options for processing credit card transactions.
NRF Plan to Recognize Vance was selected this week at the annual Retail Summit as one of 16 “Main Street Champions” along with the bill’s lead sponsors, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), who “consistently support the retail industry’s public policy priorities.”
A spokesman for the Electronic Payments Coalition, a coalition of banks that oppose the bill, including Visa and MasterCard, did not respond to a request to discuss Vance’s decision to sign on as a co-sponsor.
Doug Cantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, which is also heavily involved in the Credit Card Competition Act, told The Hill that the senator and his staff “have always done a great job.”
“People [to Vance’s office] “And they spout out bullshit. They need to know what they’re talking about,” Kanter said.
Vance grew up in a Rust Belt town in Ohio and wrote about the poverty, isolation and addiction he witnessed in his community in his memoir-turned-film “Hillbilly Elegy,” but he also worked briefly as a venture capitalist and maintains close ties to Silicon Valley.
After graduating from Yale Law School, he joined Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Mithril Capital in 2015.
Vance later joined Washington, DC-based investment firm Revolution before founding Ohio-based venture capital firm Nalia Capital with backing from Thiel, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Thiel also poured $15 million into a super PAC supporting Vance’s campaign during the 2022 election cycle.
But not everyone has backed Vance. Former Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) endorsed former Ohio Republican Party chair Jane Timken to succeed him in the 2022 election, but Trump backed Vance, who beat a crowded field of candidates.
Geduldig was one of Vance’s early donors, giving $2,900 to his campaign in June 2022, weeks after he won the Ohio primary. He told The Hill he admired Vance’s “commitment to working-class issues.” His company’s CGCN PAC also gave $2,900 to JD Ohio in May 2022 and $2,400 to Vance’s victory a few months later in August. FEC RecordsAnd Geduldig wrote another check to Vance’s campaign last month.
“Our job is to get to know elected officials and build relationships, that’s it,” Geduldig said, adding, “We think we’re in a good position to take on people who are winning Republican primaries and elections.”
A spokesman for Vance did not respond to questions from The Hill about how he would handle lobbyists who may have bet against him in the past, but Trump, who is at the top of his list of candidates, warned in January that donors to Nikki Haley would be “permanently banned from the MAGA campaign.”
“In this town, [Vance] For the past three years, he [Ohio] “The campaign will fail,” a former White House official warned.
Julia Shapero contributed.
