 I've been an ally of Donald Trump to the Washington, D.C. It's been a meteoric rise to the highest levels of American politics for J.D. Vance. Born in Middletown, Ohio, just outside Cincinnati, Vance's early life was tough, his family struggling with poverty and drug addiction, which he chronicled in his best-selling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, turned into a Netflix adaptation in 2020.