A financial tale of two potential vice presidents

After JD Vance was elected to the Senate from Ohio in 2022, he and his wife bought a five-bedroom house – their third home – for $US1.6 million ($2.4 million) in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the Capitol. Their real estate agent told a local magazine that the buyers paid in cash.

When Tim Walz was elected governor of Minnesota four years earlier, his family was living in a heavily mortgaged Cape Cod-style house, with one room rented out, about 145 kilometres from Minneapolis. After moving into the governor’s mansion, they sold the house for $US304,000 – less than the asking price.

Wealth gap: JD Vance and Tim Walz, vice presidential candidates.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

These real estate transactions are just one example of the vast gulf in wealth between the two vice presidential candidates. On their tax return for 2023, the Walzes reported $US299,000 in income, more than they had declared in years. Vance, a multimillionaire, had more than that in just his checking accounts the year before, according to his most recent financial disclosure form.

That distinction could come into play in battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where both campaigns are hoping the vice presidential candidates can present an everyman appeal to Midwestern and rural voters.

But one running mate is rich and the other far from it – and Walz, a former teacher, is emphasising the difference. Appearing with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on Tuesday, he said Vance “had his career funded by Silicon Valley millionaires”, adding: “Come on, that’s not what Middle America is.”

Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen Walz, at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.Credit: AP

Vance, former president Donald Trump’s running mate, has been campaigning this week in the same states as Harris and Walz. Luke Schroeder, a spokesperson for Vance, said the senator “earned his own success”. He continued: “Tim Walz knows better. His insult of Senator Vance is an insult to every American who has worked hard to overcome adversity.”

Walz has released his tax returns virtually every year since he was first elected to public office in 2006 as a member of Congress, representing a rural district in Minnesota. The Walzes’ income has remained fairly consistent, averaging about $US211,000 annually over the past decade, according to their returns.

In his final disclosure as a member of Congress, filed in 2019, Walz listed assets ranging from $US113,000 to $US330,000 in value, almost all in retirement, pension or life insurance accounts. He also listed a college-savings account, but as of 2019, it held at most $US15,000. His daughter finished college last year, and his son is in high school, a spokesperson said.

The Walzes’ savings might not be as meagre as the form suggests. Walz, 60, should be eligible for a federal pension, with a potentially generous annual benefit, and he might also have money in a federal savings plan – neither of which he would be required to disclose. He and his wife reported only $US167,000 in income in 2022, but their income rose significantly last year, mainly due to $US135,000 in payments from pensions and annuities.

Vance, 39, and his wife, Usha, 38, who was a corporate litigator at a prestigious law firm based in San Francisco before resigning last month, listed about $US4.4 million to $US11.5 million in assets in 2022. That included holdings that JD Vance reported in recent days, but not the value of the couple’s homes.

Senator JD Vance and his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance. The value of their assets “appears above average compared with the many other millionaires in the Senate”.Credit: Bloomberg

In addition to the house in northern Virginia, the Vances bought a townhouse – that they now rent out – in Washington, for $US590,000 in 2014, the year they married. Four years later, they bought a 600-square-metre home overlooking the Ohio River in Cincinnati for about $US1.4 million.

Vance reported more than 160 different investments, accounts and assets, but Schroeder, his spokesperson, said Vance did not hold individual stocks.

“The value of Vance’s assets appears above average compared with the many other millionaires in the Senate,” said Kedric Payne, vice president of the non-profit Campaign Legal Centre. Payne has studied the financial disclosure forms of federal officials for years.

JD Vance’s memoir was a bestseller and made into a movie, another source of income.Credit: AP

“He’s not the wealthiest, but his pages and pages of assets show that he’s far from the poorest,” he said of Vance.

By comparison, Walz is “definitely on the low end in terms of wealth compared to recent vice presidential candidates”, said Virginia Canter, an expert in financial disclosure by federal officials, who works for the non-profit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

She said the Walzes’ assets reflected the years they spent teaching in public schools with modest salaries. “You are not accumulating wealth,” she said. “You are at most paying off your mortgage, and hopefully you have a pension to see you through retirement.”

Walz and Vance come from modest backgrounds. Vance, who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, joined the Marine Corps after high school. He went to Ohio State University on the GI Bill and then attended Yale Law School with a financial aid package that was “nearly the full ride”, he wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire, later helped Vance build a lucrative career as a venture capitalist, and he helped bankroll Vance’s Senate run, contributing $US15 million.

Vance’s memoir was a bestseller and made into a movie, another source of income.

Walz grew up in rural Nebraska as the son of a school administrator and a homemaker. He has said his family sat around the kitchen table worrying about how to make ends meet.

He enlisted in the National Guard at 17, and, like Vance, attended college on the GI Bill. Friends have said Walz maxed out his credit cards to run for Congress in 2006.

He now earns about $US128,000 as governor. He was entitled to a salary of $US139,000 in 2023 and $US149,000 ($227,000) in 2024, but he turned down the increases.

A spokesperson for Walz said he did so because he had appointed the members of the council who had recommended higher salaries for state officials, including himself.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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